Buyers' role in innovation procurement: Evidence from U.S. military R&D contracts

Francesco Decarolis, Gaétan de Rassenfosse, Leonardo M. Giuffrida, Elisabetta Iossa, Vincenzo Mollisi, Emilio Raiteri and Giancarlo Spagnolo
Additional contact information
Vincenzo Mollisi: University of Mannheim
Giancarlo Spagnolo: Stockholm School of Economics

Working Papers from Chair of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy

Abstract: This study provides the first quantification of buyers' role in the outcome of R&D procurement contracts. We combine together four data sources on US federal R&D contracts, follow-on patented inventions, federal public workforce characteristics, and perception of their work environement. By exploiting the observability of deaths of federal employees, we find that managers' death events negatively affect innovation outcomes: a 1 percent increase in the share of relevant public officer deaths causes a decline of 32.3 percent of patents per contract, 20.5 percent patent citations per contract and 34.3 percent patent claims per contract. These effects are driven by the deaths occurring in the six months before the contract is awarded, thereby indicating the relevance of the design and award stage relative to ex-post contract monitoring. Lower levels of self-reported within-office cooperation also negatively impact R&D outcomes.

Keywords: innovation; R&D; public procurement; patents; bureaucracy; competence; cooperation; state capacity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H57 O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2021-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cdm-repec.epfl.ch/iip-wpaper/WP18.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Buyers' role in innovation procurement: Evidence from US military R&D contracts (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iip:wpaper:18

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Chair of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Gaétan de Rassenfosse ().