1999-2000
1998-1999
1997-1998
1996-1997
1995-1996
During the past two years, the majority of Hall’s research focused on issues
in patent policy and the use of patents as indicators of technological
innovation. A major data project undertaken jointly with Adam Jaffe of
On the latter topic, Hall and Ziedonis (2001) find that the rise in
patenting can be traced to a series of events related to the strengthening of
patent protection in the
Another increasingly important topic in the knowledge-based economy is the
administration and enforcement of intellectual property rights, especially
patents. Together with Dietmar Harhoff of Ludwig-Maxmiliens University Munich
and David Mowery of the
The results of Hall’s research with Jacques Mairesse and Benoit Mulkay on
R&D and investment in the
Hall also co-edited a special issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy
with David Ulph of the University College London. This issue, published in
January 2002, contains an introduction and a survey article on the financing of
R&D written by Hall.
Presentations of this work have been made at conferences in Seattle, Washington
(World Congress of the Econometric Society), Paris (International Conference on
Technology Policy and Innovation), Washington, D.C. (National Academies of
Science and Engineering, the Tax Policy Council, and an NSF Workshop), New
Orleans (American Economic Association annual meeting), Brussels (European
Commission), Stockholm, Munich (German Classification Society annual meeting),
UC Berkeley, Reading, UK (MESIAS Workshop), Maastricht, the Netherlands
(Workshop on Strategic Management, Innovation and Econometrics), and Cambridge,
Massachusetts (National Bureau of Economic Research Summer Institute), as well
as seminars at UC Berkeley, UCLA, University College London, University of
York, Oxford University, and the Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa. In June 2001 and
2002 Hall lectured at the Scuola Sant’Anna Superiore in
Hall’s research this year has focused on several current technology policy
issues: firm response to changes in
Revisions of papers with Rosemarie Ham Ziedonis that studies the dramatic changes in patenting behavior in the semiconductor industry in the past 15 or so years and with Albert Link and John Scott on university-industry partnerships are underway. Both papers are partially survey and interview-based. Together with Link and Scott, Hall has begun new work on the intellectual property barriers encountered by these partnerships; disagreements over the ownership of IP are often the most serious problem encountered in setting up these research relationships.
Three papers on which she is co-author have been or will be published in Research Policy in Spring 2000: a survey written with John van Reenen on the effectiveness of R&D tax credits around the world; a survey with Paul David and Andrew Toole reviewing the literature on the relationship between public and private R&D spending; and an analytic paper with Paul David on the same topic.
In addition, Hall continues to work on firm-level investment and the
valuation of intangibles. Together with Adam Jaffe and Manuel Trajtenberg, a
revised working paper on the use of citation-weighted patent measures of the
private value of innovations is being prepared for submission to publication. A
paper with Daehwan Kim on the measurement of Tobin’s q and the market value of
R&D is also in progress, as is work on takeovers and R&D in
Work with Jacques Mairesse and Benoit Mulkay on comparative investment behavior of French and U.S. firms also continues, with a new paper showing that when one compares firms across countries, across types of investment (ordinary plant and equipment versus R&D), and across type of firm (high or low technology, R&D-performing or not), the only significant difference that emerges is that the investment and R&D of U.S. firms are much more responsive to changes in the firms' cash flow or profits than French firms.
Presentations of this work have been made at conferences in
During the past year, Hall continued joint work with Adam Jaffe and Manuel Trajtenberg on the use of citation-weighted patent measures of firm-level innovation value. Her survey of work relating innovation to market value was published in a Cambridge University Press volume. Work with Jacques Mairesse and Benoit Mulkay on R&D and investment modeling continued.
With Rose Marie Ham, a graduate student in the Haas School of Business, Hall embarked on a new research project that studies the dramatic changes in patenting behavior in the semiconductor industry in the past 15 or so years. Interviews with a small number of firms in this industry were combined with econometric evidence about their patenting success to paint a consistent picture explaining why the rate of patenting in the industry has more than doubled between 1985 and 1995. Primary reasons for the increase appear to be the increasing complexity of technology and hence the reliance on technology cross-licensing for production in this sector. This has led firms to amass a large numbers of patents in order to make favorable trades with others in the industry and to avoid production hold-ups due to litigation over intellectual property.
Hall also prepared two survey articles for a special issue of Research
Policy, one with John van Reenen on the effectiveness of R&D tax credits
around the world, and one with Paul David and Andrew Toole reviewing the
literature on the relationship between public and private R&D spending. She
and Paul David began a project that contributes to the debate on the effects of
public R&D subsidies on private firm R&D with a paper setting out a
framework for analysis presented at the American Economic Association meetings
in
During January to June of 1999 Hall continued as Temporary Professor of
Economics at
Seminars: University College London; UC Berkeley; Oxford Intellectual Property Seminar, St. Peter’s College Oxford; Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Münich; Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge; Her Majesty’s Treasury, London, UK; Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin; Institute for Fiscal Studies, London; Royal Institute of International Affairs, London.
Conference presentations: NBER (Summer Institute 1998; 20th Anniversary
Productivity Program; Patent System and Innovation, Santa Barbara ); ASSA
Meetings 1999 (New York); Mannheim, Germany; Herstmonceaux Castle, Sussex;
Fondazione ENI, Milano; University of Warwick, Coventry; Computer Conference,
San Diego.
1997-98 was a productive year for Professor Bronwyn Hall, owing in part to a
month spent as an invited visitor at the Rockefeller Centre - Villa Serbelloni,
Progress was made on two research projects for the U.S. Government. A Final
Report was completed for a project for the National Science Foundation, joint
with William Long of Business Performance Research Associates, that compares
the two primary micro-level data sources for R&D spending in private
industry. A new project, joint with Albert Link of UNC-Greensboro and John
Scott of
The spring of 1998 also saw the publication of a combined special issue of Economics of Innovation and New Technology, edited by Hall and Francis Kramarz, that contains papers from a 1995 international conference on the effects of technology and innovation on firm performance, employment, and wages. The papers contained in this volume (which is spread over several issues of the journal) cover approximately 15 countries.
Seminar presentations were made at
Bronwyn Hall continued the development of a major update of her database of
The database has been used in several projects already, however: two
projects described last year and the two working papers list below. The first
is a comparative study of firm-level investment that focuses on methodological
issues in the estimation of the demand for investment. Our preliminary results
suggest an increased impact of cash flow on investment in the
Seminars on this research were presented at the
During the 1995-1996 academic year, Bronwyn Hall continued her research into the measurement of the returns to R&D at the firm level in the United States, revising a survey for publication in an AEI/Brookings volume and beginning a new project that explores the role of market share and other indicators of firm size and market power on innovation (Hall and Vopel). She also studied the role of financial factors in the R&D and capital investment decisions using micro-econometric methodology, focusing on the role of working capital (in a paper with Hugo Kruiniker of the Rijksuniversiteit Limburg) and on international comparisons between the United States, France, and Japan.
Hall was a Visiting Professor at the