Title: “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 …
Category Archives: Past
Petra Moser (New York University)
Title: “Women in Science: Lesson from the Baby Boom” How do children affect women in science? We investigate this question using rich biographical data, linked with patents and publications, for 83,000 American scientists in 1956 at the height of the baby boom. Our analyses reveal a unique life-cycle pattern of productivity for mothers. While other …
Raghu Rajan (University of Chicago, Booth)
Title: “Kill Zone” Venture capitalists suggest that incumbent internet platforms create a kill zone around themselves, where any competing entrant is acquired quickly. Consequently, financing new startups becomes unprofitable. We construct a simple model that rationalizes the existence of a kill zone. The price at which an acquisition is done depends on the number of …
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Adair Morse (Berkeley, Haas)
Title: “Small Business Survival Capabilities and Policy Effectiveness” Using unique City of Oakland data during COVID-19, we document that small business survival capabilities vary by firm size as a function of revenue resiliency, labor flexibility, and committed costs. Nonemployer businesses rely on low cost structures to survive 73% declines in own-store foot traffic. Microbusinesses (1-to-5 …
Jillian Grennan (Duke)
Title: “AI and High-Skilled Work: Evidence from Analysts” Policymakers fear artificial intelligence (AI) will disrupt labor markets, especially for high-skilled workers. We investigate this concern using novel, task-specific data for security analysts. Exploiting variation in AI’s power across stocks, we show analysts with portfolios that are more exposed to AI are more likely to reallocate …
Simcha Barkai (London Business School)
Title: “Value without Employment” Young firms’ contribution to aggregate employment has been underwhelming. However, a similar trend is not apparent in their contribution to aggregate sales or aggregate stock market capitalization. We study the implications of the arrival of “low marginal – high average” revenue-product-of-labor firms in a stylized model of dynamic firm heterogeneity, and …
Lauren Lanahan (University of Oregon)
Title: “Research Subsidy Spillovers, Two Ways” In this paper, we quantify the magnitude of R&D spillovers created by grants to small firms from the US Department of Energy. Our empirical strategy leverages variation due to state-specific matching policies, and we develop a new approach to measuring both geographic and technological spillovers that does not rely …
Tania Babina (Columbia University)
Title: “Crisis Innovation” We examine innovation following the Great Depression using data on a century’s worth of U.S. patents and a difference-in-differences design that exploits regional variation in the crisis severity. Harder-hit areas experienced large and persistent declines in independent patenting, mostly reflecting the disruption in access to finance during the crisis. This decline was …
Xavier Javarel (LSE)
Title: “Labor and Product Market Effects of Automation” We use comprehensive micro data in the French manufacturing sector between 1994 and 2015 to document the effects of automation technologies on employment, wages, prices and profits. Causal effects are estimated with event studies and a shift-share IV design leveraging predetermined supply linkages and productivity shocks across …
Luke Taylor (Wharton )
Title: “Do VCs Stifle Competition?” How does common ownership affect innovation? We study this question using project-level data on pharmaceutical startups and their venture capital (VC) investors. We find that common ownership leads VCs to hold back projects, withhold funding, and redirect innovation at lagging startups. Effects are stronger where R&D costs are larger, consistent …