Dropbox Paper

U.S. Patent Data, 1926-2010

This data was collected for the paper:

Kogan, L., Papanikolaou, D., Seru, A. and Stoffman, N., 2017. Technological innovation, resource allocation, and growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132(2), pp. 665-712.

Published version: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjw040

SSRN version: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2193068

A detailed description of the data is provided in the paper and the online appendix. If you use these data please cite the paper.

Stay updated: If you wish to be informed of updates to the data, please add your email address to our contact list.

The three files in the data are described below. All files are zipped .csv files. If you have questions about the data feel free to email Noah Stoffman at nstoffma@iu.edu.

patents_xi.zip

Patent-level data. Sample covers all utility patents issued by the USPTO between 1/1/1926 and 11/02/2010.

patents_xi

Variable name	Definition
patnum	patent number
fdate	filing date of patent (mm/dd/yyyy)
idate	issue (grant) date of patent (mm/dd/yyyy)
pdate	publication date of patent (mm/dd/yyyy)
permno	CRSP permno
class	technology class
subclass	technology subclass
ncites	number of citations
xi	$\xi$ as defined in equation (3) of the paper, in millions of dollars (nominal). As in the paper, we use $\bar{\pi}=0.56$ and $\delta =1-e^{-0.0146}$ . In the paper we convert to real using the CPIAUCNS series (annualized by taking monthly average).

firm_innovation.zip

Firm-level innovation measures by year

firm_innovation

Variable name	Definition
permno	CRSP permno
year	year
Npats	number of patents for firm-year
Tcw	$\Theta^{cw}$ , defined in equation (9) of the paper
Tsm	$\Theta^{sm}$ , defined in equation (8) of the paper
tcw	$\theta^{cw}$ , defined in equation (10) of the paper
tsm	$\theta^{sm}$ , defined in equation (10) of the paper

$\Theta^{sm}$ and $\Theta^{cw}$ are in millions of nominal dollars

$\theta^{m}, m\in\{cw,sm\}$ is the simple ratio of $\Theta^{m}$ to firm assets using the Compustat variable at, and only available beginning in 1950. To get it to the same scale as what is presented in Table 3 of the paper, multiply by 100. Note however, that Table 3 is calculated after winsorizing with annual breakpoints, and on the complete sample of firms, including those without patents.

cites.zip

Patent-level citations

cites

Variable name	Definition
citing	patent number of the patent that cites another patent
cited	patent number of the cited patent

​​patents_xi.zip

​​firm_innovation.zip

​​cites.zip

patents_xi.zip

firm_innovation.zip

cites.zip