Publications des chercheurs de PSE

In this paper we merge individual income data, firm-level data, patenting data, and IQ data in Finland over the period 1988–2012 to analyze the returns to invention for inventors and their coworkers or stakeholders within the same firm. We find that: (i) inventors collect only 8 percent of the total private return from invention; (ii) entrepreneurs get over 44 percent of the total gains; (iii) bluecollar workers get about 26 percent of the gains and the rest goes to white-collar workers. Moreover, entrepreneurs start with significant negative returns prior to the patent application, but their returns subsequently become highly positive.

The number of patent applications and "bad" patents issued has been rising rapidly in recent years. Based on this trend, we study the overload problem within the Patent Office and its consequences on the firms' R&D incentives. We assume that the examination process of patent applications is imperfect, and that its quality is poorer under congestion. Depending on policy instruments such as submission fees and the toughness of the non-obviousness requirement, the system may result in a high-R&D equilibrium, in which firms self-select in their patent applications, or in an equilibrium with low R&D, opportunistic patent applications and the issuance of bad patents. Multiple equilibria often co-exist, which deeply undermines the effectiveness of policy instruments. We investigate the robustness of our conclusions as to how the value of patent protection is formalized, taking into consideration the introduction of a penalty system for rejected patent applications, as well as the role of commitment to a given patent protection policy.

We decompose the “China shock” into two components that induce different adjustments for firms exposed to Chinese exports: an output shock affecting firms selling goods that compete with similar imported Chinese goods, and an input supply shock affecting firms using inputs similar to the imported Chinese goods. Combining French accounting, customs, and patent information at the firm level, we show that the output shock is detrimental to firms’ sales, employment, and innovation. Moreover, this negative impact is concentrated in low-productivity firms. On the other hand, the impact of the input supply shock is reversed.

How do firms diffuse resources and do they spillover outside headquarter intensive areas? We show R&D subsidies induce French firms to hire new workers, often in new establishments and commuting zones. Using subsidy induced labor demand shocks and past employment patterns, we estimate a within industry spillover elasticity of .26 to non-subsidy firms, rising to .35 for openings outside of headquarter areas. Spillovers are also significant across firm branches and for firms. While subsidies are nominally awarded to headquarters, firms expand to distribute spillovers more broadly.

How do firms diffuse resources and do they spillover outside headquarter intensive areas? We show R&D subsidies induce French firms to hire new workers, often in new establishments and commuting zones. Using subsidy induced labor demand shocks and past employment patterns, we estimate a within industry spillover elasticity of .26 to non-subsidy firms, rising to .35 for openings outside of headquarter areas. Spillovers are also significant across firm branches and for firms. While subsidies are nominally awarded to headquarters, firms expand to distribute spillovers more broadly.

We investigate the relationship between the presence of migrant inventors and the dynamics of innovation in the migrants’ receiving countries. We find that countries are 25 to 60% more likely to gain advantage in patenting in certain technologies given a twofold increase in the number of foreign inventors from other nations that specialize in those same technologies. For the average country in our sample, this number corresponds to only 25 inventors and a standard deviation of 135. We deal with endogeneity concerns by using historical migration networks to instrument for stocks of migrant inventors. Our results generalize the evidence of previous studies that show how migrant inventors “import” knowledge from their home countries, which translates into higher patenting in the receiving countries. We interpret these results as tangible evidence of migrants facilitating the technology-specific diffusion of knowledge across nations.

Ce papier propose un modèle dans l'esprit d'Aghion et al. (1995). Il relie la sensibilité de la R&D à la concurrence, au coût des innovations. Plus les innovations sont coûteuses, plus les chocs concurrentiels doivent être importants pour modifier le comportement des entreprises. L'exploitation empirique de données d'un vaste panel d'entreprises de la Banque de France conforte cet argument. Elle exhibe une relation en U-inversé entre concurrence et innovation pour les grandes entreprises mais cette relation est plus plate lorsque le coût d'innover relativement à la taille de l'entreprise augmente.

Les nombres de demandes de brevets et de "mauvais" brevets accordés ont cru rapidement dans les années récentes. Partant de ce constat, nous étudions le problème de congestion dans le processus d'attribution des brevets et ses conséquences sur les incitations à la R&D pour les entreprises. Nous supposons que le processus d'examen des demandes est imparfait et que sa qualité se dégrade sous l'effet de la congestion. En fonction d'instruments tels que les droits de soumission et la sévérité du critère d'inventivité, le système peut conduire à un équilibre avec forte R&D dans lequel les entreprises s'auto-sélectionnent, ou un équilibre avec peu de R&D, des demandes opportunistes et la délivrance de mauvais brevets. Il y a souvent multiplicité d'équilibres, ce qui limite l'efficacité des instruments de contrôle. On montre comment les conclusions se modifient selon la formalisation de la valeur de la protection par brevet, selon qu'est prise en compte la possibilité de pénalités pour rejet de la demande et selon la force de l'engagement contenu dans la politique de protection des droits de propriété intellectuels.

This paper provides a theory of the interactions between knowledge codification, firm-level organization structures, information diffusion and the dynamics of technological competition. At the firm level, we focus on incentives to design Knowledge Management policies based on the codification of soft into hard information. At the aggregate level, we discuss the endogenous nature of knowledge spillover and the implications for macroeconomic growth. The model predicts the existence of a bell shaped relationship between knowledge codification and technological competition.

Cet article établit d'intéressantes corrélations entre activité des banques locales, industrie, innovation et développement industriel en France de 1880 à 1914. En effet, les résultats empiriques montrent que les taux de croissance du PIB et du produit non agricole sont d'autant plus forts que l'activité des banques locales est grande dans un département donné. Nous entrons alors dans cette "boîte noire" et établissons un fort lien entre activité des banques locales et innovation (appréhendée par une taxe sur les brevets d'invention). Ainsi, la gestion locale de l'information semble jouer un rôle majeur par sélection directe ou indirecte des meilleurs projets. Au regard des activités bancaires d'outre-Manche et d'outre-Rhin de l'époque, ces résultats pourraient offrir une avancée, même modeste, au vieux débat "gerschenkronien".

This paper exploits a unique panel of 59,000 French firms over 1990-2004 to investigate the interactions between R&D, advertising and the competitive environment.The empirical findings confirm the predictions of a dynamic model that complements results known in static frameworks. First, more competition pushes Neck and Neck firms to advertise more to attract a larger share of consumers on their products or services. Second, for a given competitive environment, quality leaders spend more in advertising in order to extract maximal rents; thus, lower costs of ads may favor R&D.

Aghion and coauthors put forward a model which exhibits an inverted-U-shape relationship between innovation and competition: competition may increase the innovation profit margin for firms close to the technological frontier (since they escape competition) but strong competition could also reduce incentives to innovate for laggards (disincentive effect). However their analysis does not take firm size into account. This paper explores this link. Our model stresses that size should matter: if innovations are large-scale and costly in the firm's sector or relatively to the size of the firm, competitive shocks have to be large enough to change innovation choices. Using a unique panel of French firms we show an inverted-U-shape relationship that becomes flatter when the relative cost of R&D increases until it vanish altogether for small firms.