Alam, AfrozaDiegmann, AndréLeibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle2026-05-182026https://epflicht.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/handle/123456789/1191481971176915urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:2-123456789-1191482This 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.1 Online-Ressource (III, 75 Seiten, 2,91 MB) : Diagrammeenghttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/330