Grilichesian Breakthroughs: Inventions of Methods of Inventing and Firm Entry in Nanotechnology

Michael Darby () and Lynne Zucker ()

No 9825, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Metamorphic progress (productivity growth much faster than average) is often driven by Grilichesian inventions of methods of inventing. For hybrid seed corn, the enabling invention was double-cross hybridization yielding highly productive seed corn that was not self-propagating. Biotechnology stemmed from recombinant DNA. Scanning probe microscopy is a key enabling discovery for nanotechnology. Nanotech publishing and patenting has grown phenomenally. Over half of nanotech authors are in the U.S. and 58 percent of those are in ten metropolitan areas. Like biotechnology, we find that firms enter nanotechnology where and when scientists are publishing breakthrough academic articles. A high average education level is also important, but the past level of venture-capital activity in a region is not. Breakthroughs in nanoscale science and engineering appear frequently to be transferred to industrial application with the active participation of discovering academic scientists. The need for top scientists' involvement provided important appropriability for biotechnology inventions, and a similar process appears to have started in nanotechnology.

JEL-codes: L63 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-ino
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Published as Grilichesian Breakthroughs: Inventions of Methods of Inventing and Firm Entry in Nanotechnology , Michael L. Darby, Lynne G. Zucker. in Contributions in Memory of Zvi Griliches , Mairesse and Trajtenberg. 2010
Published as Michael DARBY & Lynne G. ZUCKER, 2005. "Grilichesian Breakthroughs: Inventions of Methods of Inventing and Firm Entry in Nanotechnology," Annales d'Economie et de Statistique, ENSAE, issue 79-80, pages 143-164.

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Chapter: Grilichesian Breakthroughs: Inventions of Methods of Inventing and Firm Entry in Nanotechnology (2010)
Journal Article: Grilichesian Breakthroughs: Inventions of Methods of Inventing and Firm Entry in Nanotechnology (2005)
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