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Working Paper
Patents to Products: Product Innovation and Firm Dynamics
We study the relationship between patents and actual product innovation in the market, and how this relationship varies with firms’ market share. We use textual analysis to create a new data set that links patents to products of firms in the consumer goods sector. We find that patent filings are positively associated with subsequent product innovation by firms, but at least half of product innovation and growth comes from firms that never patent. We also find that market leaders use patents differently from followers. Market leaders have lower product innovation rates, though they rely on ...
Working Paper
Economics and Epidemics: Evidence from an Estimated Spatial Econ-SIR Model
Economic analysis of effective policies for managing epidemics requires an integrated economic and epidemiological approach. We develop and estimate a spatial, micro-founded model of the joint evolution of economic variables and the spread of an epidemic. We empirically discipline the model using new U.S. county-level data on health, mobility, employment outcomes, and non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) at a daily frequency. Absent policy or medical interventions, the model predicts an initial period of exponential growth in new cases, followed by a protracted period of roughly constant ...
Working Paper
Patents to Products: Product Innovation and Firm Dynamics
We combine NielsenIQ scanner data with USPTO patent records and apply natural language processing to match detailed product descriptions to patent texts for the consumer goods sector. We show that while more than half of product innovations originate from non-patenting firms, patent filings are on average followed by subsequent product introductions. Yet this relationship weakens with firm size. Patents held by market leaders also yield revenue premiums beyond what can be explained by their own product introductions and are associated with stronger deterrence of competitors’ innovations. To ...