Patents, Citations and Innovations – A Window on the Knowledge Economy - Softcover

Jaffe, Adam B

Softcover

ISBN 10: 026260065X ISBN 13: 9780262600651

Publisher: MIT Press, 2005

Synopsis

Innovation and technological change, long recognized as the main drivers of long-term economic growth, are elusive notions that are difficult to conceptualize and even harder to measure in a consistent, systematic way. This book demonstrates the usefulness of patents and citations data as a window on the process of technological change and as a powerful tool for research on the economics of innovation. Patent records contain a wealth of information, including the inventors' identity, location, and employer, as well as the technological field of the invention. Patents also contain citation references to previous patents, which allow one to trace links across inventions. The book lays out the conceptual foundations for such research and provides a range of interesting applications, such as examining the geographic pattern of knowledge spillovers and evaluating the impact of university and government patenting. It also describes statistical tools designed to handle methodological problems raised by the patent and citation processes. The book is accompanied by a set of auxiliary materials, including complete data on 3 million patents with more than 16 million citations and a range of author-devised measures of the importance, generality, and originality of patented innovations. This is available for download at http://mitpress.mit.edu/jaffecdcontents.

About this title

Review

--Timothy F. Bresnahan, Professor of Economics, Stanford University

" A useful book full of careful measurement of the incentives, institutions, and causal flows in the knowledge economy. Shows both the importance of the knowledge economy (now denied by fools on Wall Street) and how sound economic analysis applies to it (recently denied by the same fools.)" --Timothy F. Bresnahan, Professor of Economics, Stanford University

& quot; A useful book full of careful measurement of the incentives, institutions, and causal flows in the knowledge economy. Shows both the importance of the knowledge economy (now denied by fools on Wall Street) and how sound economic analysis applies to it (recently denied by the same fools.)& quot; --Timothy F. Bresnahan, Professor of Economics, Stanford University

"A useful book full of careful measurement of the incentives, institutions, and causal flows in the knowledge economy. Shows both the importance of the knowledge economy (now denied by fools on Wall Street) and how sound economic analysis applies to it (recently denied by the same fools.)"--Timothy F. Bresnahan, Professor of Economics, Stanford University

About the Author

Adam B. Jaffe is Fred C. Hecht Professor in Economics and Dean of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University. Manuel Trajtenberg is Chair of the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University, Research Associate of the NBER, Research Fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research in London, and Research Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 026260065X
• ISBN 13: 9780262600651
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 448