This thesis investigates the impact of fragmentation in the ownership of complementary patents or patent thickets on firms' market value. This question is motivated by the increase in the patent ownership fragmentation following the pro-patent shifts in the US since 1982. The first chapter uses panel data on patenting US manufacturing firms from 1979 to 1996, and estimates the impact of patent thickets on firms' market value. I find that patent thickets lower firms' market value, and firms with a large patent portfolio size experience a smaller negative effect from their thickets. Moreover, no systematic difference exists in the impact of patent thickets on firms' market value over time. The second chapter extends this analysis to account for the indirect impacts of patent thickets on firms' market value. These indirect effects arise through the effects of patent thickets on firms' R\&D and patenting activities. Using panel data on US manufacturing firms from 1979 to 1996, I estimate the impact of patent thickets on market value, R\&D, and patenting as well as the impacts of R\&D and patenting on market value. Employing these estimates, I determine the direct, indirect, and total impacts of patent thickets on market value. I find that patent thickets decrease firms' market value, while I hold the firms’ R\&D and patenting activities constant. I find no evidence of a change in R\&D due to patent thickets. However, there is evidence of defensive patenting (an increase in patenting attributed to thickets), which helps to reduce the direct negative impact of patent thickets on market value. The data sets used in Chapters 1 and 2 have a number of missing observations on regressors. The commonly used methods to manage missing observations are the listwise deletion (complete case) and the indicator methods. Studies on the statistical properties of these methods suggest a smaller bias using the listwise deletion method. Employing Monte Carlo simulations, Chapter 3 examines the properties of these methods, and finds that in some cases the listwise deletion estimates have larger biases than indicator estimates. This finding suggests that interpreting estimates arrived at with either approach requires caution.

This thesis investigates the impact of fragmentation in the ownership of complementary patents or patent thickets on firms' market value. This question is motivated by the increase in the patent ownership fragmentation following the pro-patent shifts in the US since 1982. The first chapter uses panel data on patenting US manufacturing firms from 1979 to 1996, and estimates the impact of patent thickets on firms' market value. I find that patent thickets lower firms' market value, and firms with a large patent portfolio size experience a smaller negative effect from their thickets. Moreover, no systematic difference exists in the impact of patent thickets on firms' market value over time. The second chapter extends this analysis to account for the indirect impacts of patent thickets on firms' market value. These indirect effects arise through the effects of patent thickets on firms' R\&D and patenting activities. Using panel data on US manufacturing firms from 1979 to 1996, I estimate the impact of patent thickets on market value, R\&D, and patenting as well as the impacts of R\&D and patenting on market value. Employing these estimates, I determine the direct, indirect, and total impacts of patent thickets on market value. I find that patent thickets decrease firms' market value, while I hold the firms’ R\&D and patenting activities constant. I find no evidence of a change in R\&D due to patent thickets. However, there is evidence of defensive patenting (an increase in patenting attributed to thickets), which helps to reduce the direct negative impact of patent thickets on market value. The data sets used in Chapters 1 and 2 have a number of missing observations on regressors. The commonly used methods to manage missing observations are the listwise deletion (complete case) and the indicator methods. Studies on the statistical properties of these methods suggest a smaller bias using the listwise deletion method. Employing Monte Carlo simulations, Chapter 3 examines the properties of these methods, and finds that in some cases the listwise deletion estimates have larger biases than indicator estimates. This finding suggests that interpreting estimates arrived at with either approach requires caution.

This thesis consists of four independent essays, which consider different topics in information economics and political economy. The first two papers are variants of the same idea. An uninformed principal, e.g., a government, will make a decision. In order to gain more information it may consult two experts; however, these experts have a private interest in certain policies being implemented. The question is, to gain as much information as possible, should the principal consult experts who are biased in the same direction, or experts who prefer different decisions? The main result is that, as long as collusion between experts can be prevented, homogeneous panels are superior to heterogeneous ones, and this advantage increases with the experts’ informational precision. In the third paper, two firms consider entry in a new product market and must decide when to enter the market and how to design their product. Firms do not know for certain what the best design is, so both firms want to outwait the other’s decision in order to gain more information. The focus of the paper is on which firm will make the first decision. The main result is that if products are strong (strategic) substitutes, the worst informed firm makes the first decision in equilibrium. The analysis should apply to a range of other contexts, such as investors’ trading decisions or the policy choices of political candidates. The final paper asks the following question: Could it be that parties in a two-party system may benefit from using several candidates in the same election? To promote the use of multiple candidates, I assume that a party never runs the risk of having its votes split up among its candidates. Despite this, it turns out that parties have a strong incentive to restrict their number of nominees. Paradoxically, it seems that the more uncertain parties are about voter opinion, the fewer candidates they want to use. In particular, with a uniform voter distribution the optimal number of candidates is one. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001 S. v-vii: sammanfattning, s. 1-72: 4 uppsatser

This doctoral thesis consists of five self-contained essays on interaction in R&D between university researchers and private firms. Together, these essays explore the conditions under which private firms benefit from spillovers from publicly funded and organised research. From the first essay, which sets out to empirically validate the theoretical arguments about the benefits of university-industry interaction for private firms, the thesis follows a line of pursuit that goes back and forth between exploration of the different benefits that firms enjoy from university interaction and the relationships between these benefits and the conditions of interaction. In essay II, a typology of rationales for establishing cooperative relations is presented. A considerable breadth of interaction rationales is documented, but on closer examination, a “core” set of rationales related to innovation in terms of invented or improved products or processes are found to be the main drivers of interaction. Developing this view, three critical issues previously studied within innovation economics are re-considered from the point of view of firm rationales for interaction; public co-funding of university-firm interaction (essay II), the role of geographic proximity for interaction on R&D (essay III) and the organisation of public sector research (public research institutes and universities) in relation to firm level competences (essay IV). In a fifth essay, four ideal types of strategy for localised interaction between R&D subsidiaries and universities are proposed. Through the framework developed in this essay, the rationales for interaction are related to the overall R&D strategy of multinational firms. Concluding the thesis, it is discussed how the research presented herein opens up for improved theorizing around the roles of academic research for industrial innovation. / QC 20100706

In this thesis, I study the transmission of monetary policy through the term structure of interest rates. This is an important topic because, with short-term nominal interest rates in many advanced economies close to their effective lower bound since 2008-2009, central banks have used `unconventional' monetary policies, such as large-scale asset purchases and forward guidance, to stimulate macroeconomic activity by, inter alia, placing downward pressure on longer-term interest rates. I focus on the mechanisms through which monetary policy influences bond yields, domestically and globally, with reference to a canonical decomposition of longer-term interest rates into expectations of future short-term interest rates, and term premia. After an introduction in chapter 1, chapter 2 appraises the use of overnight indexed swap (OIS) rates as measures of expected future monetary policy. Unlike federal funds futures (FFFs), which have regularly been used to construct measures of US interest rate expectations, OIS rates are available in many countries. I find that US OIS rates provide measures of interest rate expectations that are as good as those from FFFs, and that US, UK, Eurozone and Japanese OIS rates up to a 2-year horizon tend to accurately measure interest rate expectations, providing comparable cross-country measures of monetary policy expectations. In chapter 3, I propose a novel method for estimating interest rate expectations and term premia at short and long-term horizons: a no-arbitrage Gaussian affine dynamic term structure model (GADTSM) augmented with OIS rates. Using 3 to 24-month OIS rates, the OIS-augmented model generates estimates of the expected path of short-term interest rates out to a 10-year horizon that closely correspond to those implied by FFFs rates and survey expectations, outperforming existing GADTSMs. I study the transmission of US unconventional monetary policies in chapter 4. Using the OIS-augmented GADTSM, I carry out an event study to demonstrate that US unconventional monetary policy announcements between November 2008 and April 2013 did significantly reduce US longer-term interest rates by affecting expectations and term premia. As a result of these declines, unconventional monetary policies aided US real economic outcomes. Using a structural vector autoregression, I show that changes in interest rate expectations, linked to monetary policy signalling, had more expansionary effects on US real economic outcomes than changes in term premia, associated with portfolio rebalancing. Chapter 5 assesses the international transmission of monetary policy through the term structure of interest rates between advanced economies. I present a micro-founded, two-country model with endogenous portfolio choice amongst country-specific short and long-term bonds, and equity. Within the model, US monetary policy has sizeable effects on longer-term interest rates in other advanced economies, which are similar to empirical estimates. Using the OIS-augmented GADTSM in an event study, I show that US monetary policy has led to changes in interest rate expectations in other advanced economies that amplify global spillovers, which have been partly mitigated by changes in term premia through portfolio rebalancing.

Cette thèse se situe dans le cadre théorique de l'économie industrielle appliquée à l'analyse de l'innovation technologique. Elle a pour objet principal d'évaluer les effets de la politique des pôles de compétitivité sur les incitations à innover des firmes. Il s'agit en particulier de comprendre les mécanismes informationnels par lesquels ce nouveau dispositif impacte les niveaux d'investissement en recherche et développement des firmes et leurs activités. Le premier chapitre présente le cadre général de la thèse. Il explicite les éléments de théorie économique qui sous-tendent l'émergence des clusters de recherche et de développement. Le deuxième chapitre, première contribution théorique de la thèse, analyse les effets des pôles sur les niveaux d'efforts R&D de firmes qui sont en coopération au stade de la R&D mais qui sont en compétition à la Cournot sur le marché de produit. Le troisième chapitre et deuxième contribution théorique, s'intéresse aux effets des pôles dans le cadre de relations verticales de type fournisseur-clients de technologies. Le quatrième chapitre a pour but de trouver des illustrations ou des correspondances de nos résultats théoriques à travers les informations recueillies sur le terrain auprès des acteurs des pôles de compétitivité, en l'occurrence le pôle Minalogic situé à Grenoble en Isère. / The theoretical framework of this thesis is the industrial economics applied to the analysis of technological innovation. Its main purpose is to assess the effects of competitiveness clusters policy on the incentives of firms to innovate. In particular, it aims to understand the informational mechanisms by which this new industrial policy impacts the levels of R&D investment of firms and their activities. The first chapter presents the general framework of the thesis and explains the elements of economic theory underlying the emergence of R&D based-clusters. The second chapter, our first theoretical contribution, analyzes the effects of clusters on R&D investments of firms which cooperate at the R&D stage and compete a la Cournot on product market in a two-stage game. The third chapter, our second theoretical contribution, focuses on the effects of the cluster in vertical relationship between a supplier of technology and integrators. The fourth chapter is intended to and illustrations for the theoretical results through informations gathered from actors of competitiveness clusters, specially in the case of Minalogic at Grenoble (Isere France).

The dissertation consists of three papers presenting applications of meta-analysis in international economics. The first paper examines the effect of common currency on international trade, while the remaining two papers address the relationship between foreign investment and the productivity of domestic firms. An introductory chapter puts these applications into perspective. In the first application I present a meta-analysis of the effect of currency unions on trade, focusing on the euro area. I find strong publication bias in the literature. The estimated trade- promoting effect of currency unions other than the euro reaches more than 60%. In contrast, the euro's trade-promoting effect is insignificant when I correct for publication bias. The empirical literature on this topic shows signs of the so-called economics research cycle: the relation between the reported t-statistics and publication years has an inverse U-shaped form. During the last decade more than 100 researchers have examined productivity spillovers from foreign affiliates to local firms in upstream or downstream sectors. Yet results vary broadly across methods and countries. To examine these vertical spillovers in a systematic way, in the second application I collect 3,626 estimates of spillovers and review the literature quantitatively....

Dans un contexte de carence méthodologique, cette thèse vise à apporter un nouveau souffle aux modèles de choix de localisation jusqu’ici incapables d’appréhender de manière réaliste la complexité des processus décisionnels des établissements tels que leurs choix de localisation optimale. Les modèles de choix de localisation utilisent des données géoréférencées, pour lesquelles les ensembles de choix ont une composante spatiale explicite. Il est donc essentiel de comprendre comment représenter l’aspect spatial dans les modèles de choix de localisation. La décision finale d’un établissement semble être liée au paysage économique environnant. La quantification du lien entre les observations voisines implique une prise de décision sur la spécification de la matrice spatiale. Pourtant, la grande majorité des chercheurs appliquent la métrique euclidienne sans considérer des hypothèses sous-jacentes et ses alternatives. Cette démarche a été initialement proposée en raison de données et de puissance informatique limitées plutôt que de son universalité. Dans les régions comme la région parisienne, oû la congestion ainsi que les problèmes de barrières physiques non traversables apparaissent clairement, les distances purement basées sur la topographie peuvent ne pas être les plus appropriées pour l’étude de la localisation intra-urbaine. Il est possible d’acquérir des connaissances en reconsidérant et en mesurant la distance en fonction du problème analysé. Plutôt que d’enfermer les chercheurs dans une structure restrictive de la matrice de pondération, cette thèse propose une approche souple pour identifier la métrique de distance la plus susceptible de prendre en compte correctement les marchés voisins selon le secteur considéré. En plus de la distance euclidienne standard, six autres mesures sont testées : les temps de déplacement en voiture (pour les périodes de pointe et hors pointe) et en transport en commun, ainsi que les distances de réseau correspondantes.Par ailleurs, les décisions d’un établissement particulier sont interdépendantes des choix d’autres acteurs, ce qui rend les choix de localisation particulièrement intéressants et difficiles à analyser. Ces problèmes épineux posés par l’interdépendance des décisions ne peuvent généralement être négligés sans altérer l’authenticité du modèle de décision d’établissement. Les approches classiques de la sélection de localisation échouent en ne fournissant qu’un ensemble d’étapes systématiques pour la résolution de problèmes sans tenir compte des interactions stratégiques entre les établissements sur le marché. L’un des objectifs de la présente thèse est d’explorer comment adapter correctement les modèles de choix de localisation pour étudier les choix discrets d’établissement lorsqu’ils sont interdépendants.En outre, une entreprise peut ouvrir un certain nombre d’unités et servir le marché à partir de plusieurs localisations. Encore une fois, la théorie et les méthodes traditionnelles peuvent ne pas convenir aux situations dans lesquelles les établissements individuels, au lieu de se situer indépendamment les uns des autres, forment une grande organisation, telle qu’une chaîne confrontée à une concurrence féroce d’autres chaînes. Le modèle prend en compte non seulement les interactions intra-chaînes mais aussi inter-chaînes. Aussi, la nécessité d’indiquer une nette différence entre la population de jour et de nuit a été soulignée. La demande est représentée par les flux de piétons et de voitures, la foule de clients potentiels passant par les centres commerciaux, les stations de trains et de métros, les aéroports et les sites touristiques. L’Enquête Globale Transport 2010 (EGT 2010), entre autres, est utile pour atteindre cet objectif. / This thesis is breathing new life into the location choice models of establishments. The need for methodological advances in order to more realistically model the complexity of establishment decision-making processes, such as their optimal location choices, is the key motivation of this thesis. First, location choice models use geo-referenced data, for which choice sets have an explicit spatial component. It is thus critical to understand how to represent spatial aspect in location choice models. The final decision of an establishment seems to be related to the surrounding economic landscape. When accounting for the linkage between neighboring observations, the decision on the spatial weight matrix specification must be made. Yet, researchers overwhelmingly apply the Euclidean metric without realizing its underlying assumptions and its alternatives. This representation has been originally proposed due to scarce data and low computing power, rather than because of its universality. In areas, such as the Paris region, where high congestion or uncrossable physical barriers problems clearly arise, distances purely based on topography may not be the most appropriate for the study of intra-urban location. There are insights to be gained by mindfully reconsidering and measuring distance depending on a problem being analyzed. Rather than locking researchers into a restrictive structure of the weight matrix, this thesis proposes a flexible approach to intimate which distance metric is more likely to correctly account for the nearby markets depending on the sector considered. In addition to the standard Euclidean distance, six alternative metrics are tested: travel times by car (for the peak and off-peak periods) and by public transit, and the corresponding network distances. Second, what makes these location choices particularly interesting and challenging to analyze is that decisions of a particular establishment are interrelated with choices of other players.These thorny problems posed by the interdependence of decisions generally cannot be assumed away, without altering the authenticity of the model of establishment decision making. The conventional approaches to location selection fail by providing only a set of systematic steps for problem-solving without considering strategic interactions between the establishments in the market. One of the goals of the present thesis is to explore how to correctly adapt location choice models to study establishment discrete choices when they are interrelated.Finally, a firm can open a number of units and serve the market from multiple locations. Once again, traditional theory and methods may not be suitable to situations wherein individual establishments, instead of locating independently from each other, form a large orgnization, such as a chain facing a fierce competition from other chains. There is a necessity to incorporate interactions between units within the same and competing firms. In addition, the need to state a clear difference between the daytime and nighttime population has been emphasized. Demand is represented by pedestrian and car flows, the crowd of potential clients passing through the commercial centers, train and subways stations, airports, and highly touristic sites. The Global Survey of Transport (EGT 2010), among others, is of service to reach this objective. More realistically designed location choice models accounting for spatial spillovers, strategic interaction, and with a more appropriate definition of distance and demand can become a powerful and flexible tool to assist in finding a befitting site. An appropriately chosen location in turn can make an implicative difference for the newly-created business. The contents of this thesis provide some useful recommendations for transport analysts, city planners, plan developers, business owners, and shopping center investors.

O objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar como fatores territoriais influenciam a capacidade de inovação das empresas brasileiras. Em especial, analisa-se como os transbordamentos de conhecimentos, a aglomeração urbana e econômica, o capital humano e a estrutura produtiva local afetam o grau de novidade da inovação que é introduzida pelas empresas no Brasil. Diferencia-se o grau de novidade da inovação por empresas que não geraram inovações, empresas que introduziram inovações para a firma, para o mercado nacional e para o mundo. A discussão sobre o território e a inovação até a década de 90 esteve bastante concentrada nos países desenvolvidos. Entretanto, nas últimas décadas atenção também tem sido dada a países em desenvolvimento. No Brasil, os estudos sobre o tema têm sido direcionados a compreender como as atividades inovativas estão distribuídas nas regiões, sua heterogeneidade e quais fatores podem influenciar essa distribuição. No entanto, estudos que relacionem diretamente a inovação no nível da firma e a geografia ainda são escassos. É essa lacuna que o presente trabalho procura preencher, ao observar diretamente o efeito dos fatores sobre o grau de novidade da inovação que as empresas brasileiras introduzem, utilizando os microdados da PINTEC. Para isso, foi realizada a estimação de um modelo econométrico, baseado na Função de Produção do Conhecimento que permitiu avaliar a relação entre o grau de novidade da inovação e fatores selecionados em dois níveis, o da firma e o do território. Os resultados mostram que os fatores territoriais geram diferenciais inovativos as empresas, mesmo em países em desenvolvimento, como o Brasil, em que a maior parte da inovação gerada é nova para a firma. Em particular, a aglomeração econômica e o capital humano local apresentam um papel importante para se chegar à inovação de mais alto grau de novidade, como para o mundo. Ou seja, empresas localizadas em regiões mais aglomeradas economicamente e com maior participação da mão de obra empregada qualificada tendem a introduzir inovações com mais alto grau de novidade, especialmente inovações para o mercado nacional. Ao mesmo tempo, variáveis no nível da firma, como os gastos em atividades de inovação, o tamanho da firma e a sua produtividade, impactam positivamente a capacidade de inovação das empresas. Além disso, firmas que colaboram com outros agentes ou possuem capital estrangeiro tendem a introduzir inovações com mais ato grau de novidade. Por fim, o grau de novidade da inovação das empresas que recebem financiamento público como fonte de dispêndios inovativos tende a ser mais alto do que de empresas que não recebem financiamento público. / The aim of this study is to assess how territorial factors affect innovation of Brazilian firms. In particular, it analyses how knowledge spillovers, agglomeration, human capital, and the local productive structure affect the degree of novelty of innovation. The degree of novelty of innovation is distinguished by whether firms did not innovate and whether firms had been able to introduce innovations that were new for the firm, new for the domestic market and new to the world. Until the 1990s, debate on territory and innovation has been focused on developed countries. However, recently increasing attention has been given to developing countries. In Brazil, previous studies have been directed to understand how innovation is distributes among regions, their heterogeneity and which factors can affect their distribution. However, studies that directly relate firm-level innovations and geography are still scant. This work addresses this gap by applying a Knowledge Production Function (KPF) to examine how firm-level and regional-level factors affect the degree of novelty of innovation in Brazil, using PINTEC microdata. Results show that territorial factors play an important role on innovation, even in developing countries as Brazil, which innovations tend to be mostly new for the firm. This indicates that firms located in places with higher agglomeration of economic activities and higher concentration of human capital tend to introduce higher degree of novelty innovations, especially innovations as to the domestic market. That means that firms in economic clustered regions, and with higher share of qualified labor force are able to generate innovation with higher degree of novelty, as to the world. At the firm-level, R&D efforts, firms\' size and firms\' productivity are positively associated with the degree of novelty of innovations. In addition, firms that collaborate with partners or with foreign ownership tend to introduce innovation with higher degree of novelty. Finally, public finance for innovation is also a factor that stimulates firms to introduce innovations with higher degree of novelty, in comparison with no public finance.

Depuis l’article séminal de Baks et Kramer (1999), le concept de la liquidité globale est souvent revenu au cœur de l’actualité, car les facteurs de son développement ont été considérés comme ayant indirectement participé aux développements des déséquilibres précédents la crise financière de 2008. Face à ces enjeux, la littérature s’est largement concentrée sur l’approche de la stabilité financière dans les pays émetteurs. Contrairement à cette approche, les recherches développées dans cette thèse se concentrent la perspective des pays destinataires de la liquidité globale, en particulier les pays émergents. Ainsi pour répondre à la problématique principale de l’identification des effets de reports de la liquidité globale, cette thèse propose une analyse en trois chapitres du phénomène. Premièrement, à travers une généralisation de l’analyse de la problématique de la stabilité financière dans les pays émergents. Deuxièmement, en analysant comment le comportement d’accumulation des pays destinataires affecte les conditions de la liquidité globale dans les pays émetteurs. Troisièmement, en analysant au niveau national le comportement des autorités monétaires pour prémunir leurs économies des effets de l’expansion de la liquidité globale. / Since the seminal paper by Baks and Kramer (1999), the concept of global liquidity catch once again the attention because the factors of its expansion are considered in the literature as having contributed to the development of vulnerabilities prior to the global financial crisis. Given the importance of global liquidity issues, the literature has largely focused on the financial stability approach in the issuing countries. Contrary to this approach, the research developed in this Ph.D. thesis relies principally on the receiving countries perspective, particularly the emerging countries. Accordingly, in order to answer our main problematic regarding the identification of global liquidity spillovers into the receiving countries, this thesis proposes a three chapters analysis of the phenomenon. First, we focus on a generalization of the financial stability concerns into the emerging countries. Second, we analyze how the reserve accumulation behavior in the receiving countries affects the global liquidity conditions in the main issuing country. Third, we center on the monetary authorities behavior in order to isolate their economies from the effects of the global liquidity expansion.