Patent quality and incentives at the patent office
研究了专利审查中的道德风险和逆向选择问题，分析了美国专利局奖励授权专利的薪酬方案，并解释了不同专利局在薪酬和专利质量上的差异。
Patent examination is a problem of moral hazard followed by adverse selection: examiners must have incentives to exert effort, but also to truthfully reveal the evidence they find. I develop a theoretical model to study the design of incentives for examiners. The model can explain the puzzling compensation scheme in use at the U.S. patent office, where examiners are essentially rewarded for granting patents, as well as the variation in compensation schemes and patent quality across patent offices. It also has implications for the retention of examiners and for administrative patent review.