Competitive pressure, innovation and trade protection: Evidence from US patent data

Benjamin Liebman and Kara Reynolds

The World Economy, 2019, vol. 42, issue 6, 1695-1712

Abstract: Recent theoretical models have suggested that the relationship between competition and innovation may best be characterised as an inverted‐U shape: firms in industries with low levels of competition are more likely to innovate in the wake of increased competition as they attempt to escape competition, while those in highly competitive industries will decrease innovation in the wake of increased competition as the profit incentive to innovate dissipates. Results from other studies have found positive as well as negative relationships between innovation and competition. In a parallel literature, trade economists have produced conflicting results regarding the impact of trade liberalisation on innovation. One stream of research has shown that increased access to imported intermediate goods increases productivity, suggesting a positive relationship between imports and innovation. Others have hypothesised that firms may use the technology embodied in intermediate inputs as a substitute for domestic innovation. In this paper, we merge these divergent literatures and investigate whether innovation, as measured by the production of patents by US manufacturers, has been impacted by market competition and tariff reductions. Our empirical findings indicate that insulation from imports in the form of higher tariffs on final goods was associated with innovation until the late 1980s, while falling tariffs on intermediate goods appear to have facilitated innovation during the 1990s. We also find evidence of the inverted U‐shaped relationship between market competition and innovation.

Date: 2019
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