Inventors and Impostors: An Analysis of Patent Examination with Self‐Selection of Firms into R&D
构建模型分析不同研发生产率的企业如何选择研究项目，专利局审查严格程度影响企业自我选择，并利用1982年美国按企业规模收费改革检验预测。
I present a model in which firms differing in R&D productivity choose between ambitious research projects, which are socially desirable, and unambitious ones, which are socially undesirable. The patent office must decide how rigorously to examine applications, which affects the probability of weeding out bad applications but also how firms self‐select into R&D . I show that when a subset of firms is financially constrained, the patent office should examine their applications more rigorously. This generates a number of predictions that I test by exploiting the 1982 reform that introduced firm‐size dependent fees in the U nited S tates.