2026/05/18 by Afroza Alam, André Diegmann · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Intellectual Property and Patents #Firm Innovation and Growth #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
paper · doi:10.18717/dp56nk-4g69
openalex publication_date 2026/05/18 · openalex created_date 2026/05/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16
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, it shows 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 substantial heterogeneity: managers benefit dispro portionately in publicly traded firms, whereas broader wage increases accrue to workers in non-traded firms. The findings highlight the role of institutional features and firm organiza tion in shaping how rents are shared.