AFA2019会议论文（34）： R&D, Patents, and the Future of Innovation

AFA2019会议论文（34）： R&D, Patents, and the Future of Innovation

金融经济学 前天

1、Speech is Silver, But Silence is Golden: Information Suppression and the Promotion of Innovation

Gaurav Kankanhalli,  Cornell University

 Alan Kwan, University of Hong Kong

Kenneth Merkley, Cornell University

Abstract

An innovation is difficult to finance as mere disclosure reduces its value. We study strategic non-disclosure in a novel setting of mandatory disclosures of IP licensing agreements made by public firms, wherein key information is often redacted. Surprisingly, redacting firms are received well by capital markets relative to disclosing firms. Such firms also innovate more in the future. Redaction conceals an idea from rivals while protecting and signaling its value. Complementing this view, frequent redactors and firms whose redaction is confounded by high product market competition suffer, not benefit, suggesting signal jamming – that information frictions are only partly resolved.

原文链接：

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=AFA2019&paper_id=405

2、Property Rights and Debt Financing

Paula Suh, University of Georgia

Abstract

I examine how increasing firms’ ownership of employee patents affects debt financing. I exploit a Court of Appeals Federal Circuit ruling that increased firms’ property rights to employee patents. I find that firm ownership of patents increases firms’ total debt-toassets ratio by 18%, which is equivalent to a $62 million increase in total debt. Firms’ residual control over patents improves pledgeability of patents as collateral, by raising firms’ incentives to make more productive and synergistic use of patents. This, in turn, leads to reduction in holdup problems, as evident from enhanced complementarity of patents and inventor-employees.

原文链接：

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=AFA2019&paper_id=1428

3、The Long-Term Consequences of the Tech Bubble on Skilled Workers' Earnings

Johan Hombert, HEC Paris

 Adrien Matray, Princeton University

Abstract

We use French matched employer-employee data to track skilled individuals entering the labor market during the late 1990s tech bubble. The boom led to a sharp increase in the share of skilled entrants in the tech sector, which offers relative higher wages at the time. When the boom ends, however, the wage premium reverses and these skilled workers end up with a 5.5% wage discount ten years out, relative to similar peers who started in a non-tech sector. Other moments of the wage distribution of the boom, pre-boom, and post-boom cohorts are inconsistent with explanations based on a selection effect or a cycle effect. Instead, we provide suggestive evidence that workers allocated to the booming tech sector accumulate human capital early in their career that rapidly becomes obsolete.

原文链接：

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=AFA2019&paper_id=1464

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