RAND Journal of Economics articles from March 2001

RAND Journal of Economics archives from March 2001

Investment and market dominance.(oligopolistic competition, research)(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... We analyze a model of oligopolistic competition with ongoing investment. Special cases include incremental investment, patent races, learning by doing, and network externalities. We investigate circumstances under which a firm with low costs or...

Optimal design of peer review and self-assessment schemes.(employee suggestions evaluation research)(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... A principal must decide whether or not to implement a project that originated with one of her employees. Several employees have information about the quality of the project. A successfully implemented project raises the inventor's chance of...

Tying, investment, and the dynamic leverage theory.(business strategy research)(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... The idea that an incumbent supplier may tie two complementary products to fend off potential entrants is popular among practitioners yet is not fully understood in formal economic theory. This article makes sense of the argument by formally...

Introduction.(patent system and innovation)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... In January 1999, the National Bureau of Economic Research sponsored a conference in Santa Barbara, California, on "The Patent System and Innovation." The goal of the conference was to improve our understanding of how the patent system and...

Do stronger patents induce more innovation? Evidence from the 1988 Japanese patent law reforms.
March 22, 2001... Does an expansion of patent scope induce more innovative effort by firms? We examine responses to the Japanese patent reforms of 1988. Interviews with practitioners and professional documents for patent agents suggest the reforms significantly...

The patent paradox revisited: an empirical study of patenting in the U.S. semiconductor industry, 1979-1995.(research)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... We examine the patenting behavior of firms in an industry characterized by rapid technological change and cumulative innovation. Recent survey evidence suggests that semiconductor firms do not rely heavily on patents to appropriate returns to...

Characteristics of patent litigation: a window on competition.(research)(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... The cost of engaging in litigation over intellectual property assets diminishes their value as an incentive to invest in research. The frequency of court cases reflects firms' strategies for appropriating innovation rents. We examine the...

Innovation variety and patent breadth.(intellectual property law research)(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... When innovations are heterogeneous, it may be advantageous to provide a variety of patents. By trading off patent breadth for length, it is possible that fees are not needed in the optimal policy. We present two examples. The first is a...

Reinventing public R&D: patent policy and the commercialization of national laboratory technologies.(research and development)
March 22, 2001... Despite their magnitude and potential impact, federal R&D expenditures outside of research universities have attracted little economic scrutiny. We examine the initiatives since 1980 to encourage patenting and technology transfer at the...

Damages and injunctions in protecting intellectual property.(patent law)
March 22, 2001... We investigate how liability rules and property rules protect intellectual property. Infringement might not be deterred under any of the enforcement regimes available. However, counterintuitively, a credible threat of infringement can actually...

RAND Journal of Economics Turnaround Times.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... RAND Journal of Economics Turnaround Times First Decision (%) Month 0-3 4-6 7-9 10+ Submitted Months Months Months Months April 1998 42 25 -- ...