Scholarship list
Book
Published 2021
The extent to which new technological knowledge flows across institutional and national boundaries is a question of great importance for public policy and the modeling of economic growth. This paper develops a model of the process generating subsequent citations to patents as a lens for viewing knowledge diffusion. We find that the probability of patent citation over time after a patent is granted fits well to a double-exponential function that can be interpreted as the mixture of diffusion and obsolescence functions. The results indicate that diffusion is geographically localized. Controlling for other factors, within-country citations are more numerous and come more quickly than those that cross country boundaries
Book
Published 2021
This paper uses sales and patent distribution data to establish the market and technological "positions" of firms. A notion of technological proximity of firms is developed in order to quantify potential R&D spillovers. The importance of the position variables and the potential spilover pool in explaining R&D intensity, patent productivity and TFP growth is explored.I find that both technological and market positions are signifi-cant in explaining R&D intensity, and that the technological effects are significant in explaining patent productivity. I cannot distinguish between the two effects in explaining TFP growth. Spillovers are important in all three contexts. Firms in an area where there is a high level of research by other firms do more R&D themselves, they produce more patents per R&D dollar, and their productivity grows faster, even controlling for the increased R&D and patents. These effects are present controlling for both industry and technological position effects
Book
Published 2020
The challenge of mitigating climate change has focused recent attention on basic scientific research feeding into the development of new energy technologies (Popp, 2017). Energy innovation tends to consist of a series of partially overlapping processes involving: (1) the production of scientific and technological knowledge, (2) the translation of that knowledge into working technologies or artifacts, and (3) the introduction of the artifacts into the marketplace, where they are matched with users' requirements. However, relatively little data are available showing how long each of these processes takes for energy technologies. Here we combine information from patent applications with bibliographic data to shine light on the second process--that is, the translation of scientific knowledge into working prototypes. Our results show that "clean" energy technologies are more dependent on underlying science than "dirty" technologies, and that the average lag between publication of scientific findings and the incorporation of those findings in clean energy patents has risen from about five to about eight years since the 1980s. These findings will help policymakers to devise more effective mechanisms and strategies for accelerating the overall rate of technological change in this domain.
Book
Bibliometric analysis of New Zealand research performance: measurement and classsification
Published 2018
Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Book
Barriers to adoption of no-cost options for mitigation of agricultural emissions: a typology
Published 2017
Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Book
Econometric evidence on the R&D depreciation rate
Published 2017
This paper presents estimates of the R&D depreciation rate using survey data on Australian inventions. Its novelty is twofold. First, it relies on direct observation of the revenue streams of inventions. This is in sharp contrast with previous studies, which all rely on models based on indirect observation and require strong identifying assumptions. Second, it presents estimates of the effect of patent protection on the depreciation rate. Results suggest that the yearly depreciation rate varies in a range of 1 to 5 per cent, although the depreciation rate is stronger in the first two years of inventions averaging 8-9 per cent. Patent protection slows down the erosion of profits by about 1-2 percentage points
Book
Productivity distribution and drivers of productivity growth in the construction industry
Published 2016
Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Book
The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy
Published 2015
In 1945, Vannevar Bush, founder of Raytheon and one-time engineering dean at MIT, delivered a report to the president of the United States that argued for the importance of public support for science, and the importance of science for the future of the nation. The report, Science: The Endless Frontier, set America on a path toward strong and well-funded institutions of science, creating an intellectual architecture that still defines scientific endeavor today. In The Changing Frontier, Adam B. Jaffe and Benjamin Jones bring together a group of prominent scholars to consider the changes in science and innovation in the ensuing decades. The contributors take on such topics as changes in the organization of scientific research, the geography of innovation, modes of entrepreneurship, and the structure of research institutions and linkages between science and innovation. An important analysis of where science stands today, The Changing Frontier will be invaluable to practitioners and policy makers alike.
Book
A framework for evaluating the beneficial impacts of publicly funded research
Published 01/2015
Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Book
Diffusion of green technology: a survey
Published 04/2014
Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.