105 Market Value of Patents: Evidence from the US, 1976-2017
- Jihong Lee, Hyunkyeong Lim
- 105 Jihong Lee.pdf
Abstract
Since the 1980s, the US has experienced a surge in patenting and R&D. To better understand the phenomena, we explore the evolution of the mar- ket value of knowledge capital with a novel firm-level dataset. While the importance of R&D has steadily declined, the market value of patents made a large and sustained gain in the new millennium. An additional patent per million dollars of R&D improves firm value by 11% in the latest decade compared to 3% three decades ago. The increased patent rents are driven largely by young firms, suggesting a positive role of the US patent system.
Keywords: Innovation, firm value, patent, R&D
JEL classification: O31, O34, O38, G30