Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhheco/2011_025.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inducement Prizes and Innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Brunt, Liam

    (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

  • Lerner, Josh

    (Harvard Business School)

  • Nicholas, Tom

    (Harvard Business School)

Abstract
We examine the effect of prizes on innovation using data on awards for technological development offered by the Royal Agricultural Society of England at annual competitions between 1839 and 1939. We find large effects of the prizes on competitive entry and we also detect an impact of the prizes on the quality of contemporaneous patents, especially when prize categories were set by a strict rotation scheme, thereby mitigating the potentially confounding effect that they targeted only “hot” technology sectors. Prizes encouraged competition and medals were more important than monetary awards. The boost to innovation we observe cannot be explained by the re-direction of existing inventive activity.

Suggested Citation

  • Brunt, Liam & Lerner, Josh & Nicholas, Tom, 2011. "Inducement Prizes and Innovation," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 25/2011, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2011_025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nhh.no/Admin/Public/DWSDownload.aspx?File=%2fFiles%2fFiler%2finstitutter%2fsam%2fDiscussion+papers%2f2011%2f25.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sokoloff, Kenneth L., 1988. "Inventive Activity in Early Industrial America: Evidence From Patent Records, 1790–1846," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(4), pages 813-850, December.
    2. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    3. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    4. Kremer, Michael R., 1998. "Patent Buyouts: A Mechanism for Encouraging Innovation," Scholarly Articles 3693705, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    5. Antras, Pol & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2003. "Factor prices and productivity growth during the British industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 52-77, January.
    6. Nicholas Crafts, 2004. "Steam as a general purpose technology: A growth accounting perspective," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 338-351, April.
    7. Schankerman, Mark & Pakes, Ariel, 1986. "Estimates of the Value of Patent Rights in European Countries during the Post-1950 Period," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(384), pages 1052-1076, December.
    8. Boldrin,Michele & Levine,David K., 2010. "Against Intellectual Monopoly," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521127264, October.
    9. Blundell, Richard & Griffith, Rachel & Windmeijer, Frank, 2002. "Individual effects and dynamics in count data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 113-131, May.
    10. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    11. repec:fth:harver:1473 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Zorina Khan & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 2004. "Institutions and Democratic Invention in 19th-Century America: Evidence from "Great Inventors," 1790-1930," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 395-401, May.
    13. Shavell, Steven & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2001. "Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 525-547, October.
    14. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Patent Statistics as Economic Indicators: A Survey," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 287-343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Tom Nicholas, 2011. "Independent invention during the rise of the corporate economy in Britain and Japan," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(3), pages 995-1023, August.
    16. repec:bla:jindec:v:46:y:1998:i:4:p:405-32 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Josh Lerner, 2002. "150 Years of Patent Protection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 221-225, May.
    19. Michael Polanvyi, 1944. "Patent Reform," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 11(2), pages 61-76.
    20. Michael Kremer, 1998. "Patent Buyouts: A Mechanism for Encouraging Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1137-1167.
    21. Jean O. Lanjouw & Ariel Pakes & Jonathan Putnam, 1998. "How to Count Patents and Value Intellectual Property: The Uses of Patent Renewal and Application Data," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 405-432, December.
    22. Christine MacLeod & Jennifer Tann & James Andrew & Jeremy Stein, 2003. "Evaluating inventive activity: the cost of nineteenth‐century UK patents and the fallibility of renewal data," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(3), pages 537-562, August.
    23. Michael Kremer & Heidi Williams, 2010. "Incentivizing Innovation: Adding to the Tool Kit," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 10, pages 1-17, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Petra Moser, 2007. "Why Don't Inventors Patent?," NBER Working Papers 13294, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicholas, Tom, 2011. "Cheaper patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 325-339, March.
    2. Tom Nicholas, 2013. "Hybrid Innovation In Meiji, Japan," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(2), pages 575-600, May.
    3. B. Zorina Khan, 2014. "Inventing in the Shadow of the Patent System: Evidence from 19th-Century Patents and Prizes for Technological Innovations," NBER Working Papers 20731, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Petra Moser & Tom Nicholas, 2013. "Prizes, Publicity and Patents: Non-Monetary Awards as a Mechanism to Encourage Innovation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 763-788, September.
    5. Eric Budish & Benjamin Roin & Heidi Williams, 2013. "Do fixed patent terms distort innovation? Evidence from cancer clinical trials," Discussion Papers 13-001, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    6. Nicolas van Zeebroeck & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2011. "Filing strategies and patent value," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 539-561, February.
    7. Donges, Alexander & Selgert, Felix, 2019. "The Consequences of Radical Patent-Regime Change," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203662, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Alessandro Nuvolari & Michelangelo Vasta, 2015. "Independent invention in Italy during the Liberal Age, 1861–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(3), pages 858-886, August.
    9. Stephen D Billington & Alan J Hanna, 2021. "That’s classified! Inventing a new patent taxonomy [Text matching to measure patent similarity]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(3), pages 678-705.
    10. B. Zorina Khan, 2014. "Of Time and Space: Technological Spillovers among Patents and Unpatented Innovations during Early U.S. Industrialization," NBER Working Papers 20732, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine, 2013. "The Case against Patents," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    12. Rockett, Katharine, 2010. "Property Rights and Invention," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 315-380, Elsevier.
    13. Werner Hölzl, 2007. "Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and European IPR Policy," Austrian Economic Quarterly, WIFO, vol. 12(1), pages 71-82, May.
    14. Armin Mertens & Marc Scheufen, 2024. "Intellectual property and fourth industrial revolution technologies: how the patent system is shaping the future in the data-driven economy," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 275-310, April.
    15. Antoine Dechezleprêtre & Yann Ménière & Myra Mohnen, 2017. "International patent families: from application strategies to statistical indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(2), pages 793-828, May.
    16. Petra Moser & Joerg Ohmstedt & Paul W. Rhode, 2015. "Patent Citations and the Size of the Inventive Step - Evidence from Hybrid Corn," NBER Working Papers 21443, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Josh Lerner, 2002. "Patent Protection and Innovation Over 150 Years," NBER Working Papers 8977, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Arora, Ashish & Ceccagnoli, Marco & Cohen, Wesley M., 2008. "R&D and the patent premium," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1153-1179, September.
    19. Wagner, Stefan & Wakeman, Simon, 2016. "What do patent-based measures tell us about product commercialization? Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 1091-1102.
    20. Eric Budish & Benjamin N. Roin & Heidi Williams, 2015. "Do Firms Underinvest in Long-Term Research? Evidence from Cancer Clinical Trials," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2044-2085, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Awards; Patents; Contests.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2011_025. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Karen Reed-Larsen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sonhhno.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.