Zvi Griliches's contributions to the economics of technology and growth*

Zvi Griliches's contributions to the economics of technology and growth are identified. Included is a discussion of his contributions on: the determinants of differences in speed of adoption of innovations; the use of patents to measure technology; the private and social returns to R&D; and spillover effects from R&D. Griliches's own evaluation of his research contribution is compared to the evaluation of others in the field, using as evidence citation counts of his works collected from the online Web of Science. Griliches's most important contribution is his 1957 Econometrica hybrid corn paper that is a foundation of the economics of technological innovation. Remarkably, the trend in annual citations to the paper has continued to increase for over 40 years. Finally, we summarize Griliches's most recent views on the practice of economics and on the most important unanswered questions in the economics of technology and growth.     

Appropriation Of Returns From Technological Assets And The Values Of Patents And R&D In Japanese High-Tech Firms †

This paper investigates the extent that technological assets contribute to the value of the firm, using the sample of 90 Japanese firms in pharmaceutical, chemical, and electrical equipment industries. We use the firm's R&D expenditures and the number of patents (in stock) as the measures of its technological assets and show that the relative usefulness of these two measures varies across industries. Particularly, Tobin's q is positively related to the technological assets most strongly in the pharmaceutical industry. It is also most sensitive in this industry to the level of patent stock, coinciding with the view that drug patents are more effective than other patents as a means of appropriating returns from innovation. The communications equipment industry is also characterized by its q's dependence on patent stock. In addition, this industry's q is particularly sensitive to the level of net R&D investment in the most recent year, presumably because of the rapid technological progress in this industry.     

企业技术合作、知识基础与技术创新绩效关系研究——基于中国电子信息行业的实证分析

通过分析56家代表性企业的专利数据发现,在中国电子信息这个高新技术行业,企业间技术合作对其创新绩效存在显著促进作用,技术合作强度每增加一个单位,企业研发产出增加1.01%。此外,这种正向关系受到企业知识基础结构特征的调节。知识基础广度与一致性对技术合作强度与企业技术创新绩效之间的正向关系具有显著的负向调节效应,而企业知识基础深度则对两者关系具有显著的正向调节作用。     

Appropriating innovation's technical value: Examining the influence of exploration

In this study we examine how different approaches to exploratory search are used to generate an innovation influence appropriation of its technical value. Technical value is the benefit a firm derives from utilizing the underlying knowledge embedded in an innovation to stimulate and generate further innovations. Based on a sample of 772 patents from the ink jet printing field, we find that exploratory search that spans technical domains enhances appropriation of innovations’ technical value; conversely, exploratory search spanning industry domains diminishes appropriation of innovations’ technical value. These effects are further influenced by the age of the knowledge explored. In addition, we find that appropriation of innovations’ technical value enhances the market share of the innovators. We discuss the implications of these findings for both future research and for improving business practice.     

我国标准化与专利的关系:基于ICS分类的实证分析

专利与标准(化)在一国创新系统中发挥着越来越重要的作用。国内外现有研究标准(化)与专利之间相互关系的实证文献很少,基于我国的宏观经验数据来分析专利和标准(化)之间关系的实证研究,在变量设定以及数据收集方面存在较大的缺陷。首先在变量的设定方面纠正了现有研究的不足之处,其次严格按照布莱德的标准的国际分类(ICS)和国际专利分类(IPC)之间的对应关系收集数据,从而在变量的选择和收集以及样本量方面保证了数据分析结果的有效性。经过实证分析,研究结果表明:我国的专利申请与标准之间具有积极的相互影响的关系;同时,在不同的行业中,专利申请和标准之间的关系是不同的。     

全球生物芯片产业技术发展阶段比较研究

生物芯片技术是21世纪科技发展的制高点,是各国重点发展的新兴技术。基于全球7 894项专利,运用S成长曲线模型,实证研究了全球生物芯片产业技术发展阶段,通过对比各国发展阶段,为中国制定新兴产业技术发展规划提供决策参考。结果表明,美国在全球生物芯片技术主导设计方面具有先驱优势;日本与韩国的生物芯片技术发展最快;德国与法国生物芯片技术萌芽期较短,技术消化吸收能力与自主研发能力较强;中国生物芯片技术发展尚缓,成长期为2006-2022年,与其它主要技术拥有国存在一定差距。     

Capital control, debt financing and innovative activity

The present paper discusses the effects of dispersed versus concentrated capital ownership on investment into innovative activity. While the market for equity capital might exert insufficient control on top managements’ behavior, this weakness may be mitigated by a suitable degree of debt financing. We report the results of an empirical study on the determinants of innovative activity measured by patent applications. Using a large sample of German manufacturing firms, we find that companies with widely held capital stock are more active in innovation, i.e. weakly controlled managers show a higher innovation propensity. However, the higher the leverage the more disciplined the managers behave.     

Fragmented property rights and royalty bargaining

We consider production by a firm that relies on the patent rights that are held by other actors. Before production can take place, bargains have to be struck with each patent holder over the royalty per unit produced. In the negotiations, a patent holder must be mindful of the fact that a large royalty will increase the product price and lower demand for the final product. Hence each patent holder would prefer to gain a large royalty at the expense of rivals. When the producer makes the first offer in an alternating offer framework, we analyze whether it should conduct negotiations sequentially with some grouping of patent holders or simultaneously. We demonstrate that the producer will prefer simultaneous negotiation. An individual patent holder would prefer to negotiate early with the producer, and then to see remaining rights holders negotiate simultaneously. A firm that holds several patents would want to negotiate royalties on each one sequentially and then have simultaneous negotiation of payments to other rights holders.     

The ‘inventor balance’ and the functional specialization in global inventive activities

Inventors and organizational assets are inputs of inventive activities which are often provided at a global scale, where countries might specialize in the provision of one or the other type of inputs. We introduce a new patent-based metric, the ‘inventor balance’, to quantify this type of functional specialization, which we discover to be considerable, and we propose a conceptual framework to explain it. We observe a progressive ‘decoupling’ of national sub-systems providing respectively inventors and organizational assets. Moreover, we find that countries with a high level of innovativeness relative to their economic development, high technological specialization, and strong individualistic cultural traits, contribute relatively more inventors than organizations to the global production of inventions.     

Prizes,patents and the search for longitude

The 1714 Longitude Act created the Board of Longitude to administer a large monetary prize and progress payments for the precise determination of a ship's longitude. However, the prize did not prohibit patenting. We use a new dataset of marine chronometer inventors to show that the propensity to patent was high. We argue that while the prize spurred entry by key inventors, and progress payments facilitated research investment in an area of significant social value, patents promoted disclosure. Our findings highlight the importance of complementarities between prize and patent-based incentives in the design of innovation inducement contests.