Search Results
Working Paper
Patents to Products: Product Innovation and Firm Dynamics
We combine NielsenIQ scanner data with USPTO patent records and apply natural language processing to match detailed product descriptions to patent texts for the consumer goods sector. We show that while more than half of product innovations originate from non-patenting firms, patent filings are on average followed by subsequent product introductions. Yet this relationship weakens with firm size. Patents held by market leaders also yield revenue premiums beyond what can be explained by their own product introductions and are associated with stronger deterrence of competitors’ innovations. To ...
Working Paper
Macroeconomic Effects of China's Financial Policies
The Chinese economy has undergone three major phases: the 1978?97 period marked as the SOE-led economy, the 1998?2015 phase as the investment-driven economy, and the new normal economy since 2016. All three economies have been shaped by the government financial policies, defined as a set of credit policy, monetary policy, and regulatory policy. We analyze the macroeconomic effects of these financial policies throughout the three phases and provide the stylized facts to substantiate our analysis. The stylized facts differ qualitatively across different phases or economies. We argue that the ...
Working Paper
Patents to Products: Product Innovation and Firm Dynamics
We study the relationship between patents and actual product innovation in the market, and how this relationship varies with firms’ market share. We use textual analysis to create a new data set that links patents to products of firms in the consumer goods sector. We find that patent filings are positively associated with subsequent product innovation by firms, but at least half of product innovation and growth comes from firms that never patent. We also find that market leaders use patents differently from followers. Market leaders have lower product innovation rates, though they rely on ...
Working Paper
Barriers to Creative Destruction: Large Firms and Nonproductive Strategies
This working paper reviews recent empirical evidence on large firms and nonproductivestrategies that hinder creative destruction and reallocation. The focus is on three types ofnonproductive strategies: political connections, nonproductive patenting, and anticompetitiveacquisitions. Across different contexts using granular micro data sets, we overwhelmingly see that asfirms gain market share, they increasingly rely on nonproductive strategies but reduce theirproductive, innovation-based strategies. I also discuss theoretical channels, aggregate implications,and potentials for some policies.
Journal Article
Population, Migration, and Generations in Urban Neighborhoods
The number of people living in urban neighborhoods has been rising in recent decades. This Commentary investigates changes in the number, ages, and financial status of those who have been moving into and out of urban neighborhoods, using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel. I find that since 2000, the increase in urban populations is the result of young adults migrating into urban neighborhoods and senior citizens aging in place. Urban populations have also become more educated and well to do. While declining urban neighborhoods may still outnumber ...
Working Paper
Neoclassical Inequality
In a model with a worker-capitalist dichotomy, we show that the relationship between inequality (measured as a ratio of incomes for the two types) and growth is complicated; zero growth generally lowers inequality, except under extreme parameterizations. In particular, the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor in production needs to be considerably greater than 1 in order for income inequality be higher with zero growth. If this condition is not met, factor prices adjust strongly causing the fall in the return to capital (the rise in wages) to reduce income inequality. Our ...
Journal Article
Southeast New Mexico shines as state economy slowly mends
Journal Article
Strength of economy, limited benefit eligibility in Texas curb long-term unemployment rate
An unemployment rate with a persistent long-term component can be more detrimental to the economy than the same jobless rate with a smaller share of long-term unemployed.
Working Paper
The Returns to Government R&D: Evidence from U.S. Appropriations Shocks
Based on a narrative classification of all significant postwar changes in R&D appropriations for five major federal agencies, we find that an increase in nondefense R&D appropriations leads to increases in various measures of innovative activity and higher business-sector productivity in the long run. We structurally estimate the production function elasticity of nondefense government R&D capital using the SP-IV methodology of Lewis and Mertens (2023) and obtain implied returns of 150 to 300 percent over the postwar period. The estimates indicate that government-funded R&D accounts for one ...
Working Paper
The Returns to Government R&D: Evidence from U.S. Appropriations Shocks
Based on a narrative classification of all significant postwar changes in R&D appropriations for five major federal agencies, we find that an increase in nondefense R&D appropriations leads to increases in various measures of innovative activity and higher business-sector productivity in the long run. We structurally estimate the production function elasticity of nondefense government R&D capital using the SP-IV methodology of Lewis and Mertens (2023) and obtain implied returns of 140 to 210 percent over the postwar period. The estimates indicate that government-funded R&D accounts for ...