 Shedding Light on Inventors' Returns to PatentsDomenico Depalo and Sabrina Di Addario No 375, Development Working Papers from Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano Abstract: We estimate individual returns to patents using a unique longitudinal administrative dataset on patents and earnings, following individuals and firms for 20 years (1987-2006). We find that inventors' wages steadily increase before patent applications are submitted to the European Patent Office, reach a peak around the time of submission and then decrease again. We also find that the applications that will eventually lead to a granted patent receive a greater wage increase than those that will not. Finally, we use an event study framework to distinguish among inventor-types and we find that the star-inventors" (the employees submitting at least three times in their life) receive a lasting wage premium, while the employees with one or two submissions stop receiving the premium after the application date, in line with the "unobserved ability" literature. Keywords: Patents; Wages; Incentives; Inventors; Performance pay; Return (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:csl:devewp:375 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Development Working Papers from Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.