Diversification of procedural and administrative costs and innovation

Abstract

We examine the diversification of administrative and procedural costs on patent stockusing a large dataset from the European Patent Office with 15,000firms for the periodbetween 1995 and 2015. The results reveal that administrative and procedural costs aresignificant forfirm-level patenting activity. However, not all administrative and proceduralcosts have equal effects. Higher administrative costs often encourage patent applicationand validation by solving the adverse selection problem and short-run opportunism, aswell as other sources of asymmetric information. The effective administration of intel-lectual property law and low-cost enforcement are found to considerably foster patentingactivity. The effects are robust for various mis-specification checks and do not disappearonce country-level research and development infrastructure proxies are controlled for. Theextreme bounds of administrative and procedural costs are computed across more than 5billion regressions, and the sizeable impact of administration on patent application andvalidation outcomes is confirmed.