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on Intellectual Property Rights |
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Issue of 2019‒06‒10
two papers chosen by Giovanni Ramello Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | Nicolas Crouzet; Janice C. Eberly |
| Abstract: | We document that the rise of factors such as software, intellectual property, brand, and innovative business processes, collectively known as “intangible capital” can explain much of the weakness in physical capital investment since 2000. Moreover, intangibles have distinct economic features compared to physical capital. For example, they are scalable (e.g., software) though some also have legal protections (e.g., patents or copyrights). These characteristics may have enabled the rise in industry concentration over the last two decades. Indeed, we show that the rise in intangibles is driven by industry leaders and coincides with increases in their market share and hence, rising industry concentration. Moreover, intangibles are associated with at least two drivers of rising concentration: market power and productivity gains. Productivity gains derived from intangibles are strongest in the Consumer sector, while market power derived from intangibles is strongest in the Healthcare sector. These shifts have important policy implications, since intangible capital is less interest-sensitive and less collateralizable than physical capital, potentially weakening traditional transmission mechanisms. However, these shifts also create opportunities for policy innovation around new market mechanisms for intangible capital. |
| JEL: | E22 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25869&r=all |
| By: | Langinier, Corinne; Ray Chaudhuri, A. (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We develop a theoretical framework to investigate the impact of patent policies and emission taxes on green innovation that reduces the emission output ratio, and on the emission level. In the absence of green consumers, the introduction of patents results in a paradox whereby increasing emission tax beyond a certain threshold leads to a discrete increase in the emission level, which may be avoided by reducing the patenting cost. In the presence of green consumers, this paradox is restricted to an intermediate range of tax rates, and at sufficiently high tax rates, reducing the patenting cost may increase the emission level. Also, higher emission taxes increase green investment only if the fraction of green consumers is sufficiently small, and the magnitude of this effect decreases as this fraction increases.Moreover, a stricter patentability requirement is only effective at reducing emissions if the fraction of green consumers is sufficiently small. |
| Keywords: | patent; clean technologies; environmentally friendly consumers |
| JEL: | O34 L13 Q50 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiucen:03e766c3-0046-4ddf-b9aa-44fb81ed9458&r=all |