Matching patents to compustat firms, 1980–2015: Dynamic reassignment, name changes, and ownership structures

Ashish Arora*, Sharon Belenzon, Lia Sheer

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper describes the methodology used to construct a new sample of patents matched to Compustat firms for the period 1980–2015. We compare our data to existing NBER data sets and underscore several methodological improvements, including dynamic matching, company name changes, and ownership structures. We examine how our improved match changes results obtained from the ’01 and ’06 NBER patent files using comparable samples. Overall, we find that improved patent assignment leads to slightly higher estimates of patent value in market value regressions, as well as to higher estimates of the R&D elasticity in patenting regressions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104217
JournalResearch Policy
Volume50
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2021
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation

    Keywords

    • Innovation
    • Market value
    • Measurement error
    • NBER patent data
    • R&D

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