Discussion Paper No. 220
November 9, 2021
Bargaining Failure and Freedom to Operate: Re-evaluating the Effect of Patents on Cumulative Innovation
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We investigate the causal effect of patent rights on cumulative innovation, using large-scale data that approximate the patent universe in its technological and economic variety. We introduce a novel instrumental variable for patent invalidation that exploits personnel scarcity in post-grant opposition at the European Patent Office. We find that patent invalidation leads to a highly significant and sizeable increase of follow-on inventions. The effect is driven by cases where the removal of the individual exclusion right creates substantial freedom to operate for third parties. Importantly, our results suggest that bargaining failure between original and follow-on innovators is not limited to environments commonly associated with high transaction costs.
Keywords:
cumulative innovation; patents; bargaining failure; freedom to operate; opposition;
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Discussion Paper No. 219
The E-Word - On the Public Acceptance of Experiments
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Randomized experiments are often viewed as the “gold standard” of scientific evidence but people’s scepticism towards experiments has compromised their viability in the past. We study preferences for experimental policy evaluations in a representative survey in Germany (N>1,900). We find that a majority of 75% supports the idea of small-scale evaluations of policies before enacting them at a large scale. Experimentally varying whether the evaluations are explicitly described as “experiments” has a precisely estimated overall zero effect on public support. Our results indicate political leeway for experimental policy evaluation, a practice that is still uncommon in Germany.
Keywords:
experiment aversion; policy experimentation; education;
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Discussion Paper No. 218
Long-run Expectations of Households
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The rational expectations assumption, e.g. in life-cycle models and portfolio-choice models, prescribes agents to have model-consistent beliefs and to avoid systematic prediction errors. In reality, justi cation and identi cation of expectations are nontrivial. One way to solve this problem is to elicit expectations collecting survey data. We utilize the German SOEP Innovation Sample to analyze short-run and long-run expectations of households in three di erent domains: stock market, labor market and housing market. Our main contribution to the existing literature is that we study expectations about price developments over longer periods, which is of central relevance since many important economic decisions of households concern the long run. Previous studies have mainly focused on short-run or medium-run expectations. We document that while expectations about wages are similar to historical values, the long-run expectations about the developments of the stock market index and about house prices are strongly pessimistic. In the case of the stock market, respondents expect only a small percentage of historical growth. We also observe substantial heterogeneity of expectations by socio-economic background.
Keywords:
long-run expectations; biased beliefs; returns to education;
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Discussion Paper No. 216
Intertemporal Preferences and the Adoption Decision for Bluetooth Speakers
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The adoption decision for durable goods is intertemporal by definition. However, estimating utility and discount functions from revealed preference data using dynamic discrete choice models is difficult because of an inherent identification problem. To overcome this issue, we use stated preference data. Specifically, we employ the experimental design of Dubé, Hitsch, and Jindal (2014), where future prices are known and that elicits intertemporal adoption decisions for Bluetooth speakers in a discrete choice framework. We estimate several models of discounting (e.g., static, myopic, geometric, and quasi-hyperbolic) and find considerably lower discount factors than typical market interest rates would suggest. The values are also smaller compared to respondents’ matching-based discount factors, even though the correlation is positive and significant. Furthermore, there are substantial differences in discounting across respondents (i.e., heterogeneity in time-preferences) and lastly, there is no strong empirical evidence for quasi-hyperbolic discounting. Thus, the standard economic model seems to be appropriate for the data at hand.
Keywords:
intertemporal preferences; dynamic discrete choice models; durable goods adoption;
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Discussion Paper No. 215
Standing on the Shoulders of Science
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The goal of science is to advance knowledge, yet little is known about its value for marketplace inventions. While important breakthrough technologies could not have been developed without scientific background, skeptics argue that this is the exception rather than the rule, questioning the usefulness of basic research for private sector innovations and the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer from university to industry. We analyze the universe of U.S. patents to establish three new facts about the relationship between science and the value of inventions. First, we show that a patent that directly builds on science is on average 2.9 million U.S. dollars more valuable than a patent in the same technology that is unrelated to science. Based on the analysis of the patent text, we show second that the novelty of patents predicts their value, and third that science-intensive patents are more novel. This documents that science introduces new concepts that are valuable for marketplace inventions. Our study informs the debate on the merits of science for corporate innovation and the origins of breakthrough inventions.
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Discussion Paper No. 214
Personality Traits Across the Life Cycle: Disentangling Age, Period, and Cohort Effects
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Despite the importance for socio-economic outcomes, there is an ongoing debate about the stability of personality traits over the life cycle. By disentangling age, period and cohort influences on personality traits, this paper adds to the existing empirical contributions, which often focus on age patterns and disregard cohort and period influences. We present the results from systematic specification tests that provide novel evidence for the separability of age, period, and cohort effects in almost all personality traits. Our estimates also document that for different cohorts, the evolution of personality traits across the life-cycle follows a stable, though non-constant, age-profile, while there are sizeable differences across time periods.
Keywords:
big five personality traits; locus of control; risk attitudes; age-period-cohort decomposition; life cycle;
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Discussion Paper No. 213
Does Relative Performance Information Lower Group Morale?
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In many organizations, productivity relies not just on individual effort but also on group morale, that is, the willingness of co-workers to help each other perform better at work. Relative performance evaluations (RPE) are known to increase individual work morale but may negatively affect group morale because they create a sense of competition among members of a reference group. In a novel experiment, I vary whether or not members of a reference group obtain relative performance information on a task that is relevant for their social image or selfimage, a general knowledge test. I measure how this affects the subsequent willingness to help the productivity of others by sharing knowledge with them at a personal cost. I find that RPE cause members of a reference group to compete as intensely as under relative pay, compared to a baseline with no relative performance information and fixed piece-rates. It also increases the perceived social distance between them. Yet, I show that even after a performance competition, individuals are willing to help the productivity of others in the group. These findings advance our understanding of how relative concerns among co-workers affect the way they work together.
Keywords:
relative performance information; rank feedback; social incentives; on-the-job help; group productivity; social and self-image; experiment;
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Discussion Paper No. 212
Working Life and Human Capital Investment: Causal Evidence from Pension Reform
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In this paper we present a life-cycle model with human capital investment during working life through training and provide a novel empirical test of human capital theory. Using a sizable pension reform which shifts the retirement age between two adjacent cohorts by three years, we document causal evidence that an increase in the working life increases investment into human capital through training. We estimate this effect using a regression discontinuity design based on a large sample from the German microcensus. We discuss and test further predictions regarding the relation between initial schooling, training, and the reform effect and show that only individuals with a college degree increase human capital investment. Our results speak to a large class of human capital models as well as policies extending or shortening working life.
Keywords:
human capital; retirement policies; RDD;
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Discussion Paper No. 211
Are Strategies Anchored?
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Anchoring is one of the most studied and robust behavioral biases, but there is little knowledge about its persistence in strategic settings. This article studies the role of anchoring bias in private-value auctions. We test experimentally two different anchor types. The announcement of a random group identification number but also of an upper bid limit in the first-price sealed-bid auction result in higher bids. We show that such behavior can be explained as a rational response to biased beliefs. In Dutch auctions, the effect of a starting price, is negative. We demonstrate that the long-established ranking that the Dutch auction generates lower revenue than the first-price sealed-bid auction crucially depends on the size of the anchor.
Keywords:
anchoring bias; games; incomplete information; auctions;
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Discussion Paper No. 210
Risk-Taking under Limited Liability: Quantifying the Role of Motivated Beliefs
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This paper investigates whether limited liability affects risk-taking through motivated beliefs. To do so, we run a within-subject experiment in which subjects invest in a risky asset under full or limited liability. In both cases, before the investment is made, subjects observe a noisy signal that indicates whether the investment will succeed or fail. They then state the likelihood of the investment's success and decide how much to invest. Our results show a strong effect of limited liability on both the investment decision and the formation of motivated beliefs. Compared to subjects under full liability, subjects under limited liability not only invest larger amounts but are also significantly more optimistic about the success of their investments. Finally, we show that more than one-third of the increase in investment under limited liability can be explained through motivated beliefs.
Keywords:
limited liability; motivated beliefs; experiment;
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