Copyrights, which establish intellectual property in music, science, and other creative goods, are intended to encourage creativity. Yet, they also raise the cost of accessing existing work - potentially discouraging future innovation. This paper uses an exogenous shift towards weak copyrights (and low access costs) during WWII to examine the potentially adverse effects of copyrights on science. Using two alternative identification strategies, we show that weaker copyrights encouraged the creation of follow-on science, measured by citations.This change was driven by a reduction in access costs, allowing scientists at less affluent institutions to use affected knowledge in new follow-on research.
The United States first adopted immigration quotas for “undesirable” nationalities in 1921 and 1924 to stem the inflow of low-skilled Eastern and Southern Europeans (ESE). This paper investigates whether these quotas inadvertently hurt American science and invention. Detailed biographic data on the birth place, as well as immigration, education, and employment histories of more than 80,000 American scientists reveal a dramatic decline in the arrival of ESE-born scientists after 1924. An estimated 1,170 ESE-born scientists were missing from US science by the 1950s. To examine the effects of this change on invention, we compare changes in patenting by US scientists in the pre-quota fields of ESE-born scientists with changes in other fields in which US scientists were active inventors. Methodologically, we apply k-means clustering to scientist-level data on research topics to assign each scientists to a research field, and then compare changes in patenting for the pre-quota fields of ESE-born US scientists with the pre-quota fields of other US scientists. Baseline estimates indicate that the quotas led to 68 percent decline in US invention in ESE fields. Decomposing this effect, we find that the quotas reduced not only the number of US scientists working in ESE fields, but also the number of patents per scientist. Firms that had employed ESE-born immigrants before the quotas experienced a 53 percent decline in invention. The quotas damaging effects on US invention persisted into the 1960s.
One in twelve Americans is affected by depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or another type of mental health disorder. This paper uses individual-level registry data and a change in the treatment of BD to investigate the career effects of mental health. Cross-sectional analyses show that mental health disorders carry immense earnings penalties. After a diagnosis, earnings drop by roughly one fifth for people with depression, one fourth for people with BD, and two fifths for people with schizophrenia. To identify the causal effects of mental health, we exploit the approval of lithium as a maintenance treatment for BD in 1976. Comparing earnings penalties for people with differential access, we find that access to treatment eliminates more than one third of the earnings penalty from BD. Disability is an important mechanism for lower earnings. Compared with their siblings, people with BD are 4.5 times more likely to receive disability; access to treatment eliminates more than half of this excess risk. We also find that parental wealth mitigates the career effects of mental health. Compared with the top quantile of parental wealth, people in the bottom quantile suffer substantially more severe adverse effects from mental health disorders, and they benefit three times as much from treatment. .
How does parenting influence gender inequality in science? We investigate this question by examining data on children, productivity, and promotions for nearly 83,000 American scientists in 1956, at the height of the baby boom (1946-64). Using patents to measure productivity, we find that parenting reduced the productivity of mothers but not fathers. Mothers were less productive in their 20s and early 30s but became more productive after age 35, reaching peak productivity several years after other scientists. Event study estimates show that the productivity of mothers declined after they married but recovered 15 years later. In contrast, fathers and other women were most productive in the early years after marriage. These differences in the timing of productivity have important implications for promotions. Specifically, we find that mothers were 21 percent less likely to be promoted to tenure compared with fathers and 19 percent less compared with other women. In contrast, fathers were slightly more likely to get tenure compared other men. To interpret these findings, we investigate selection into marriage, parenting, and “survival” in science. Mothers were no less productive than other women, but female scientists married late and had fewer children than male scientists. Linking our data with faculty records, we show that female scientists, and especially mothers, were less likely to survive in science. Employment data reveal a dramatic decline in entry by women who were in their 20s at the baby boom, suggesting that the disparate burden of parenting created a lost generation of female scientists.
Demand uncertainties create major obstacles for financing technological innovation, as well as creativity in the arts. This paper uses detailed book-level data on Romantic Period English literature to investigate crowdfunding as a mechanism to finance innovation in the presence of demand uncertainties. A simple model yields conditions under which authors choose alternative financing, and specifically crowdfunding. We show that new authors, female authors, and authors in new genres face substantially greater demand uncertainty than established authors, men, and authors working in established genres.. Detailed book-level contract data reveal that entrants, women, and authors in new genres are more likely to crowdfund. We find that crowd-funded works have lower payoffs on average but are substantially more likely to become a major hit. Exploring variation across genres, we show that crowdfunded novels for women (and by women) were more likely to be published in multiple editions, suggesting that realized demand exceeded expected demand in this emerging genre. Crowdfunded women’s novels are also more likely to be translated and have an increased probability of long-run success. Using text analysis to measure novelty, we show that crowd-funded titles are likely to present new ideas than publisher-funded works.
Patents are intended to encourage innovation and economic growth. Yet, throughout history, countries have chosen piracy instead of patenting during their most critical phase of economic development. This book documents how the United States and European countries have used piracy in their early stages economic development to catch up to the technology frontier, and how they switched to patents once they reached the frontier.
Feeding the world’s growing population is one of the most critical policy challenges for the 21st century. With tightening constraints on natural resources, such as water and arable land, agricultural innovation is quickly becoming the most promising path meet the nutrient needs for future generations. Moreover, the increasing variability in the world’s climate intensifies the need for developing new crops that can tolerate extreme weather. Despite the urgency of this task, there is an active discussion on the returns to public and private spending in agricultural R&D. Since the 1990s, many of the world’s wealthier countries have scaled back their share of GDP devoted to agricultural R&D. Dwindling public support leaves universities, which, historically, have been a major source of agricultural innovation increasingly dependent on funding from industry, with uncertain effects on agricultural research. To help address these issues, this book provides new economic evidence on the sources of agricultural innovation, on challenges of measuring productivity, on the role of universities and their interactions with industry, and on emerging mechanisms to fund agricultural R&D.
“Did Plant Patents Create the American Rose?” (with Paul Rhode) in Joshua Lerner and Scott Stern (eds). The Rate and Direction of Technological Change, Chicago University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 413-41.