Paola Giuri

The Market for Patents in Europe

By using the PatVal-EU dataset we find that the most important determinant of patent licensing is firm size. Patent breadth, value, protection, and other factors suggested by the literature also have an impact, but not as important. In addition, most of these factors affect the willingness to license, but not whether a license actually takes place. We discuss why this suggests that there are transaction costs in the markets for technology. The issue is important because many potential licenses are not licensed suggesting that the markets for technology can be larger, with implied economic benefits.

The long-term evolution of vertically-related industries

The paper develops the argument that the long-term structural evolution of an industry depends on the evolution of a vertically-related, downstream industry. We analyse two pairs of vertically-related industries, the jet and turboprop aircraft and engine industries, since the first introduction of the jet and turboprop technologies to 1998. The paper shows that the evolutionary dynamics of the downstream industry, in terms of number of firms and products, entry, exit and concentration, is transmitted to the upstream industry via the structure of the network of vertical exchange relations. We identify two network configurations, partitioned and hierarchical, and show that they are responsible for sharply different transmission effects. An econometric analysis is carried out to demonstrate this difference in the turboprop and jet markets.

Explaining leadership in virtual teams: the case of open source software

This paper contributes to the open source software (OSS) literature by investigating the likelihood that a participant becomes a project leader. Project leaders are key actors in a virtual community and are crucial to the success of the OSS model. Knowledge of the forces that lead to the emergence of project managers among the multitude of participants is still limited. We aim to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the association between the roles played by an individual who is registered with a project, and a set of individual-level and project-level characteristics. In line with the theory of occupational choice elaborated by (Lazear, E.P., 2002. Entrepreneurship. NBER Working Paper No. 9109, Cambridge, Mass; Lazear, E.P., 2004. Balanced skills and entrepreneurship, American Economic Review 94, pp. 208-211), we find that OSS project leaders possess diversified skill sets which are needed to select the inputs provided by various participants, motivate contributors, and coordinate their efforts. Specialists, like pure developers, are endowed with more focused skill sets. Moreover, we find that the degree of modularity of the development process is positively associated with the presence of project leaders. That result is consistent with the modern theory of modular production (Baldwin, C.Y., Clark, K.B., 1997. Managing in an age of modularity. Harvard Business Review September-October. pp. 84-93; Mateos-Garcia, J., Steinmueller, W.E., 2003. The Open Source Way of Working: A New Paradigm for the Division of Labour in Software Development? SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Studies. Open Source Movement Research INK Working Paper, No. 1; Aoki, M., 2004. An organizational architecture of T-form: Silicon Valley clustering and its institutional coherence. Industrial and Corporate Change 13, pp. 967-981).

Network structure and industrial dynamics. The long-term evolution of the aircraft-engine industry

This paper proposes a new approach to explain the long-term evolution of a supplier industry. The network of vertical relations between suppliers and buyers is identified as a determinant of the concentration of the supplier industry and of the dynamics of market shares. The vertical structure of the industry is captured by collecting information on all vertical relations between dyads of firms and by building matrices of interaction for the aircraft-engine industry from 1953 to 1997. An econometric exercise is used to test some hypotheses about the relation between selected network measures and industrial dynamics.

What Determines University Patent Commercialization? Empirical Evidence on the Role of IPR Ownership

This paper addresses the commercialization of academic patents, developed in both universities and public research organizations (PROs). We distinguish between university-owned and university-invented patents to analyze if and how patent ownership affects the probability of commercialization and, similarly, if the characteristics of national university intellectual property right (IPR) regimes correlate with it. We study three commercialization channels—sales, licensing and spin-off formation—appearing in a sample of 858 university and PRO patents filed with the European Patent Office between 2003 and 2005 across 22 countries. To analyze differences in commercialization outcomes, this study employs a multivariate probit model. The results suggest that PRO ownership is negatively associated with the likelihood of selling the patent and creating an academic spin-off; university ownership positively affects the patents licensing uses. Finally, the institutional IPR regime has a negative effect on the probability of selling a patent.

Intellectual Property Rights and Market Dynamics

Two opposite models are currently operating in the modern economy, the strong intellectual property rights (IPR) model, and the open source/open science model. They have traditionally been applied to alternative institutional contexts. The strong IPR model has been associated to the business environment, while the open science model has been associated to the academic or research system. More recently, a strengthening of the IPR system has occurred in the public research system, and open science models have been adopted in private sectors like the open source software. This paper discusses these different models and their implications on the innovative activity of firms and economies, and the market dynamics. One of the main benefits deriving from a strong IPR system is that it encourages the entry of new technology-based firms and the commercialisation of technologies in markets for technologies. At the same time, an increased patent protection is also associated to potential costs, such as those arising from a excessive fragmentation of property rights, an abuse of patent protection for strategic reasons (sleeping and blocking patents), and an increase in litigation costs.

INCREASING RETURNS AND NETWORK STRUCTURE IN THE EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS OF INDUSTRIES

The expert contributors to this book examine recent developments in empirical methods and applied simulation in evolutionary economics. Using examples of innovation and technology in industry, it is the first book to address the following questions in a systematic manner: Can evolutionary economics use the same empirical methods as other research traditions in economics?; Is there a need for empirical methods appropriate to the subject matter chosen?; What is the relationship between appreciative theorising, case studies and more structured empirical methods?; and What is the relationship of modelling and simulation to empirical analysis?

Supporting academic entrepreneurship: cross-country evidence in Europe

TTOs have been considered the most important instrument for universities to support and develop academic entrepreneurship. Various policies and instruments can be implemented by TTOs to support the commercialization of academic knowledge. We focus on factors such as TTOs’ governance and their internal organization, the mission/ strategy underlying their activities, and the national and specific constrains under which they work to better understand the role of TTOs and the role of universities as facilitators (or inhibitors) of academic entrepreneurship. Using the data from a survey developed under the FinKT (Financing Knowledge Transfer in Europe) project, we provide evidence on the support that academic, European TTOs offer to academic entrepreneurship using a cross-country lens.

A Test of Lazear’s Theory of Entrepreneurship in the Open Source Software Virtual Community

This paper studies the emergence of entrepreneurs and their skill profile in the open source software (OSS) community. We test the hypothesis that entrepreneurs, carrying out complex, multitask activities, have more balanced skill sets compared with individuals who are less involved in project management activities.Our empirical analysis employs the SourceForge dataset containing information on 77,039 individuals working in 54,229 OSS projects. We estimate logit and ordered logit models to explore the likelihood that an individual is a project founder or manager. Our main regressors include individual attributes like skill level and diversity, and project-level controls. Results support our hypothesis.

Innovazione, apprendimento e imitazione nelle relazioni verticali. Il caso dell’industria dei motori d’aereo

In questo lavoro si sviluppa l’idea che le strategie di acquisto degli acquirenti a valle, che nel tempo si modificano passando dall’approvvigionamento da un unico fornitore a strategie multiple sourcing, innescano processi di spillover ed imitazione di conoscenze tecnologiche fra i fornitori innovatori e follower, e stimolano tutti i fornitori a raggiungere la frontiera per poter ottenere e mantenere le commesse dai clienti sottoposti a diverse opzioni dai vari fornitori. L’intensificarsi di relazioni verticali incrociate derivanti da strategie di approvvigionamento multiplo degli acquirenti, favorendo esternalita positive di apprendimento, ma anche spillover e processi di imitazione da parte dei concorrenti in misura superiore rispetto a mercati caratterizzati da relazioni singole cliente-fornitore, contribuiscono ad intensificare la competizione tecnologica e di mercato. L’evoluzione dell’industria dei motori d’aereo rappresenta un caso interessante di innovazione e reazione da parte dei concorrenti. La dinamica competitiva del settore e stata infatti caratterizzata da instabilita delle posizioni dei leader, sia tecnologiche che di mercato.