Corporate Patenting, Customer Capital, and Financial Market Outcomes
研究企业专利如何通过提升客户资本（客户对产品新颖性和质量的感知）来增加企业绩效和金融市场估值，利用专利审查员的随机分配作为工具变量建立因果关系。
Abstract We study how patenting enhances customer capital and creates financial value in a product market characterized by information asymmetry between firm insiders and customers. We find that firms with more and higher quality patents develop greater customer capital, as measured by more positive customer perceptions of product novelty and quality. To establish causality, we exploit the exogenous variation in the random assignment of patent examiners to review applications and use the average examiner leniency as an instrument for patent grants. Our mediation analysis documents a positive impact of patenting on firm performance and financial market valuation through enhanced customer capital.