Intellectual Property Government Open Data: Australian Business Number Links to All Intellectual Property Data in Australia

Intellectual property rights protect the fruits of investment in intangible assets, such as inventions and innovations, creative content, designs, brand recognition and reputation, through five broad arms: patents, trade marks, design rights, plant breeder's rights and copyright. All of these rights, with the exception of copyright, are administered by IP Australia. To facilitate analysis of these rights, IP Australia released Intellectual Property Government Open Data (IPGOD) on < data.gov.au >. IPGOD is a weekly updated, publically accessible database that provides access to 100‐plus years of non‐sensitive administrative data on intellectual property rights held in IP Australia's databases that are linked to Australian Business Numbers and Australian Company Numbers.     

Imported Intermediates,Absorptive Capacity and Productivity: Evidence from Ghanaian Manufacturing Firms

This paper analyses whether the use of imported intermediates improves productivity using firm‐level panel data of manufacturing firms in Ghana covering the period between 1991 and 2002. This includes examining the importance of absorptive capacity (ABC) in enhancing the productivity gains from imported intermediates. We propose lagged relative productivity as a new measure of ABC. For any given period, ABC is defined as the natural logarithm of a firm's total factor productivity (TFP) in the previous period relative to the firm's initial TFP. An alternative measure of ABC considers real value added per worker in lieu of TFP. Overall, we find that firms with high levels of ABC derive productivity gains from the contemporaneous and prior use of imported intermediates, particularly for firms operating in the input‐intensive industries. Our findings are robust to different specifications of the base model and different estimation techniques.     

Estimating the Causal Effect of Entry on Generic Drug Prices Using Hatch–Waxman Exclusivity

Competition among generics helps keep drug prices low and control medical costs. Good estimates of the effect on price of the entry of another generic competitor would inform competition policy and test oligopoly theories. However, identifying the causal effect of entry is difficult since the number of firms that compete in a market is endogenously determined. We exploit provisions of the 1984 Hatch–Waxman Act to identify a causal effect. We find that ignoring endogenous selection into generic drug markets imparts a significant downward bias to the estimates of the effects of two and three competitors on generic drug prices.     

The Vancouver 2010 Olympics and leisure-time physical activity rates among youth in Canada: any evidence of a trickle-down effect?

Using nationally representative data from the Canadian Community Health Survey, we explored if the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics were associated with leisure-time physical activity rates among youth in Canada. No statistically significant changes were observed in the rate of moderately active/active youth in Canada or the province of British Columbia (BC) over the two-year time periods under investigation. At the regional level however, a significant increase in the rate of moderately active/active females from 2007–2008 (pre-event) to 2009–2010 (the year prior to the event and the year the event was staged) was observed in the Richmond, BC, health region (z = 2.05, p = .04). Previous conclusions that trickle-down effects do not occur are not supported by our data. Instead, we conclude that trickle-down effects may in fact occur, but may tend to be localised within certain communities (i.e. close to where Olympic events are staged) and among particular segments of a population.