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Patent-based measures are frequently used indicators in empirical research on innovation and technology as well as firms’ strategies and organizational choices. We contribute to their validation in a unique setting that allows us to combine data on product commercialization in the pharmaceutical industry with the underlying patents on the level of individual products. Our findings draw a complex picture regarding the information content of various patent indicators are bear important implications for the use and the proper interpretation of these indicators in settings where they are employed to describe outcomes beyond the patent system itself.

With permission of the Academy of Management

Empirical scholarship on the standards-trade relationship has been held up due to methodological challenges: measurement, varied effects, and endogeneity. Considering the trade-effects of one particular standard (ISO 9000), we surmount methodological challenges by measuring standardization via national penetration of ISO 9000, allowing standardization to manifest via multiple (quality-signaling, information/compliance-cost, and common-language) channels, and using instrumental variable, multilateral resistance and panel data techniques to overcome endogeneity. We find evidence of common-language and quality-signaling augmenting country-pair trade. Yet, ISO-rich nations (most notably European) benefit the most from standardization, while ISO-poor nations find ISO 9000 to represent a trade barrier due to compliance-cost effects.

With permission of Elsevier

This paper uses a rich survey of 6446 households in Slovakia to estimate price elasticities of demand for Internet access, and draw implications for market definition. We estimate a mixed logit model, in which households choose between different broadband technologies: DSL, cable modem, fibre, WiFi and mobile. We find that a number of household characteristics influence the technology choices, and there is also significant unobserved heterogeneity. Demand for Internet access is highly price sensitive. The price elasticity of demand for DSL is −3.02, which falls in the middle of the range of elasticities for the other technologies. Furthermore, the price elasticity of demand at the level of all fixed broadband technologies (DSL + cable modem + fibre + WiFi) is equal to −1.98. For a reasonable range of profit margins, this estimate implies that mobile broadband should be included in the relevant antitrust market of fixed broadband. Our findings have implications for competition policy in Central and Eastern European countries where due to poor copper networks mobile broadband is an important alternative to fixed broadband.