Generating and trading biological innovations in agriculture

This dissertation develops a comprehensive analysis of the generation and trade of innovations within an entire industry, across all types of R&D organizations both public and private. Methods are developed to estimate empirical technological trajectories from patent data, and are applied to describe the recent history of biological innovation in agriculture. A division of innovative labor is found among R&D organization, which implies the need for efficient trading in technologies in order to sustain the pace of innovation and realize potential welfare gains. The technology transfer institutions upon which such trade currently depends are surveyed and critiqued, leading to recommendations for a new kind of technology market mediating institution.; Chapter 1 is an empirical study, which seeks to reconcile evolutionary economic theory on how heterogeneous technologies emerge over time along technological trajectories with predictions of theory that organizations in different sectors of the R&D economy should specialize. Specialization by R&D sectors in different phases of a technological trajectory's evolution is tested using data on all U.S. patents for biological inventions with relevance to crop agriculture granted between 1973 and 2001, categorized into subsets estimated to capture the most significant technological trajectories. Established citations-based indices proxy for economic qualities such as value, originality, generality, and appropriability. Assignee designations are used to identify the type of inventing organization---whether public sector (a government, university, or nonprofit), entrepreneurial private sector (an individual or start-up firm), or corporate private sector. Multinomial regression results are consistent with systematic differences in innovation across sectors: public sector researchers are more likely to do original R&D and to do it earlier; entrepreneurs are more likely to generate high value patents that are more highly appropriable; while corporations are more likely to generate patents later, of lower value, and of more moderate appropriability.; Chapter 2 pursues the argument for specialization and gains from trade in innovation between the public and private R&D sectors with an institutional survey of university offices of technology transfer, which is an institutional innovation that aims to facilitate the trade in innovations between universities and private industry through a process of establishing and marketing intellectual property rights. It is shown that technology transfer results in more than just the licensing of patents to existing industry, with substantial numbers of start-up companies based on new university technologies. Chapter 2 provides perspective on the economic forces at work in the transfer of technology from publicly funded research to commercial use. It then introduces, interprets, and analyzes results from several recent surveys of technology transfer operations and impacts. Finally, the chapter draws implications for the future development and improvement of market making institutions for technology transfer.; Chapter 3 is a policy essay that introduces and advocates for the creation of one such market making institution for technology transfer, dubbed the "intellectual property clearinghouse".