Patents, firm rents, and worker compensation : causal evidence from quasi-random patent allocation / Afroza Alam, André Diegmann ; editor: Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) - Member of the Leibniz Association
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Patents, firm rents, and worker compensation$dcausal evidence from quasi-random patent allocation Discovery
1971176915
URN
urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:2-123456789-1191482
DOI
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ISSN
Koordinaten
Skalierung
Autorin / Autor
Beiträger
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Erschienen
Halle (Saale), Germany : Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) - Member of the Leibniz Association, 2026
Umfang
1 Online-Ressource (III, 75 Seiten, 2,91 MB) : Diagramme
Ausgabevermerk
Sprache
eng
Anmerkungen
Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 37-41
Inhaltliche Zusammenfassung
This paper provides new causal evidence on how patent allowances affect firms and their employees based on quasi-random assignment of patent applications to examiners. Exploiting employer-employee records with newly linked German firm data and web-scraped patent documents, we show that patent-induced shocks reduce firm exit, improve productivity, and increase wages, with rent-sharing elasticities between 0.10 and 0.21. Wage gains are broadly observed across occupational tasks, with high heterogeneity: managers benefit disproportionately in publicly traded firms, whereas broader wage increases accrue to workers in non-traded firms. Our findings highlight the role of institutional features and firm organization in shaping how rents are shared.
Schriftenreihe
IWH discussion papers ; 2026, no. 6 (May 2026) ppn:837399270