Do Resources Flow to Patenting Firms?

This paper exploits longitudinal data on firm performance and patenting activity for 23 OECD countries over the period 2003-2010 to explore the extent to which changes in the patent stock are associated with flows of capital and labour to patenting firms. While the finding that patenting is associated with real changes in economic activity at the firm level is in line with recent literature, new empirical evidence presented suggests that the impact of patenting on firm size is likely to be causal. Moreover, these data reveal important differences across OECD countries in the extent to which innovative firms can attract the complementary tangible resources that are required to implement and commercialise new ideas. In turn, the contribution of framework policies to explaining the observed cross-country differences in the magnitude of these flows is explored. While further research is required to establish causality, the results are consistent with the idea that well-functioning product, labour and capital markets; efficient judicial systems and bankruptcy laws that do not overly penalise failure can raise the returns to innovative activity. The paper also investigates the heterogeneous impacts of policies and finds that young firms – which are more likely to experiment with disruptive technologies and rely on external financing to implement and commercialise their ideas – disproportionately benefit from reforms to labour markets and more developed markets for credit and seed and early stage finance.