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Brown Bag Economics of Innovation

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• Friday 7 June 2024 10:00-12:30

  Collège de France (5 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

  GALBIATI Roberto (Sciences Po) : Science under Inquisition: The allocation of talent in early modern Europe

  WARGON Raphaël (PSE) : How to Silence Researchers? Evidence from Illiberal Hungary

• Friday 28 April 2023 10:00-11:00

  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85442648435?pwd=RVZGOWgyTm9VZjFFM3NnR09RbVNhdz09

  The taxation of couples

  Pierre Boyer École polytechnique–CREST

  Abstract

  This paper studies the tax treatment of couples. We use two different approaches. One is tailored to the analysis of tax systems that stick to the principle that the tax base for couples is the sum of their incomes. One is tailored to the analysis of reforms toward individual taxation. We study the US federal income tax since the 1960s through the lens of this framework. We find that, in the recent past, realizing efficiency gains requires lowering marginal tax rates for secondary earners. We also find that revenue-neutral reforms towards individual taxation are in the interest of couples with high secondary earnings while couples with low secondary earnings are worse off. The support for such a reform recently passed the majority threshold. It is rejected, however, by a Rawlsian social welfare function. Thus, there is a tension between Rawlsian and Feminist notions of social welfare.

• Friday 31 March 2023 10:00-11:00

  https://insead.zoom.us/j/91768711761?pwd=N214Q3MrRHZBRkdua21OajBaWStUQT09

  EECKHOUT Jan (UPF Barcelona) : Killer Innovation: The Macroeconomic Implications of Strategic Investment that affects Market Structure, with Renjie Bao (Princeton)

  Jan Eeckhout (UPF Barcelona)

  Abstract

  We propose a theory of innovation where incumbent firms strategically invest excessively in innovation to deter entry and reduce competition. In our quantitative exercise we find that the phenomenon of killer innovation becomes pervasive during the 2000s and remains at a high level until now. We also identify a large efficiency loss from the resulting market power due to killer innovation, in excess of 15% of aggregate output in 2019. Large firms over-invest and small firms under-invest or do not enter the market. Finally, we investigate a set of counterfactual policies and find that a 10% profit tax on incumbents can enhance social welfare by 5.3% in 2019, while a 10% entry subsidy leads to inefficient innovation entrants that harms the economy.

• Friday 17 March 2023 10:00-11:00

  STRATEGIC INFORMATION DISCLOSURE IN MARKETS FOR TECHNOLOGY

  George Chondrakis (ESADE Business School) ; Rosemarie H. Ziedonis (Imperial College London Business School)

  Abstract

  Markets for technology can provide important opportunities for firms to reinforce their competitive position. However, participating in markets for technology can also reveal important information to competitors. In this paper, we study this tension by exploring the strategic disclosure of patent acquisitions and the conditions under which firms will trade the benefits of competitor deterrence for those of secrecy. We develop a model where firms choose their optimal disclosure policy based on the costs of imitation and the effectiveness of competitor deterrence. We test the predictions of the model using data on patent assignments and examining the recording lag between execution date and registration date with the USPTO. We find that the recording lag for patent assignments is high for newer technologies, and when the assignee lacks a reputation for enforcement. Additional analyses reveal that a) an increase in the enforceability of business method and software patents reduces the recording lag for assignments including such patents, and b) regulatory changes increasing patent disclosure, and thus that lower imitation costs, reduce the recording lag in patent assignments.

• Friday 3 March 2023 10:00-11:00

  Does Chinese Research Hinge on US Coauthors ? Evidence from the China Initiative

  Céline Antonin, Luc Paluskiewicz, David Strömberg, Xueping Sun, Raphaël Wargon et Karolina Westin

  Abstract

  Launched in November 2018, the China Initiative was meant to protect US intellectual property and technologies against Chinese Economic Espionage. In practice, it made administrative procedures more complicated and funding less accessible for collaborative projects between Chinese and US researchers. In this paper we use information from the Scopus database to analyze how the China Initiative shock affected the volume, quality and direction of Chinese research. We find a negative effect of the Initiative on the average quality of both, the publications and the co-authors of Chinese researchers with prior US collaborations. Moreover, this negative effect has been stronger for Chinese researchers with higher research productivity and/or who worked on US-dominated topics prior to the shock. Finally, we find that Chinese researchers with prior US collaborations reallocated towards European coauthors after the shock, and also towards more basic research.

• Friday 3 February 2023 10:00-11:00

  https://insead.zoom.us/j/91768711761?pwd=N214Q3MrRHZBRkdua21OajBaWStUQT09

  RUANE Cian (IMF) : Worker Mobility in Production Networks

  Abstract

  Abstract: This paper documents that workers tend to find jobs through their employers' production networks. Employer-employee data, matched with the universe of firm-to-firm transactions for the Dominican Republic, reveals that one fifth of workers who change firm move to a buyer or supplier of their original employer - significantly more than predicted by standard labor market characteristics. Hiring from buyers or suppliers accounts for the majority of net job flows to higher wage and productivity firms. An event-study shows that moving to a buyer or supplier results in a persistent 6.7 p.p. increase in earnings relative to other movers. One third of this premium is due to supply chain movers earning more than other workers hired at the same firm. We present evidence that this higher match quality can be explained by human capital transferability along the supply chain. Our results point to a new channel through which factors affecting the supply chain, such as international outsourcing or contracting frictions, affect labor market dynamism.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 13 October 2014 17:00-18:15

  MSE(106-112, boulevard de l'Hôpital - Salle du 6ème étage) 75647 Paris Cedex 13

  SZALAY Dezso (BONN) : Brown Bag Economics of Innovation Seminar

  Abstract

  We study strategic information transmission in a Sender-Receiver game where players' optimal actions depend on the realization of multiple signals but the players disagree on the relative importance of each piece of news. We characterize a statistical environment - featuring symmetric loss functions and elliptically distributed parameters - in which the Sender's expected utility depends only on the first moment of his posterior. Despite disagreement about the use of underlying signals, we demonstrate the existence of equilibria in differentiable strategies in which the Sender can credibly communicate posterior means. The existence of smooth communication equilibria depends on the relative usefulness of the signal structure to Sender and Receiver, respectively. We characterize extensive forms in which the quality of information is optimally designed of equal importance to Sender and Receiver so that the best equilibrium in terms of ex ante expected payoffs is a smooth communication equilibrium. The quality of smooth equilibrium communication is entirely determined by the correlation of interests. Senders with better aligned preferences are endogenously endowed with better information and therefore give more accurate advice.

  Full text [pdf]