The quality factor in patent systems
by Bruno van Pottelsberghe on 13 July 2010
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Category: WORKING PAPERS
Topics: Research, innovation and growth
In this paper, Bruegel senior Fellow Bruno van Pottelsberghe develops a methodology to compare the quality of examination services in different patent offices. Quality is defined as the extent to which patent offices comply with their patentability conditions in a transparent way. The methodology consists of a two-layer analytical framework encompassing 'legal standards' and their 'operational design', which includes several interdependent components
that affect the stringency and transparency of the filtering process.
The opening up of eastern Europe at 20-jobs, skills, and ‘reverse maquiladoras’ in Austria and Germany
by Dalia Marin on 12 July 2010
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Category: WORKING PAPERS
Topics: Labour, migration and ageing, New Member States, Enlargement and Neighbourhood
Many people in the European Union fear that eastern enlargement has led to major job losses in 'old' member states, particularly in Austria and Germany, as the two most important neighbours of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. Are these fears justified?
To address these questions, this paper makes use of new survey data of 660 German and Austrian firms with 2,200 investment projects in eastern Europe during the period 1990-2001. The new survey data represent 100 percent of Austrian and 80 percent of German direct investment in eastern Europe.
Assessing the potential for knowledge-based development in transition countries
by Reinhilde Veugelers on 31 May 2010
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Category: WORKING PAPERS
Topics: Emerging economies and development, Research, innovation and growth, New Member States, Enlargement and Neighbourhood
This Working Paper by Bruegel Senior Fellow Reinhilde Veugelers examines the potential for a knowledge-based growth path in transition countries of central and eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The paper looks closely at how total-factor productivity, a residual growth factor commonly interpreted as reflecting technological progress, drives growth rates in these economies which exhibit a much lower GDP per capita compared to the EU15 or the United States. By analysing the prerequisites for knowledge-based growth, the author explains why transition countries are at a systemic disadvantage relative to the EU15, US and Japan and have limited potential for knowledge-based growth.
Monetary Policy and Risk Taking
by Ignazio Angeloni on 15 February 2010
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Category: WORKING PAPERS
Topics: Budgetary and monetary policies
In this paper Bruegel Visiting Scholar Ignazio Angeloni (European Central Bank), Ester Faia (Goethe University Frankfurt, Kiel IfW and CEPREMAP) and Marco Lo Duca (European Central Bank) examine the links between monetary policy, financial risk and the business cycle, combining data evidence and a new DSGE model with banks. The model includes banks (modeled as in Diamond and Rajan, JF 2000 and JPE 2001) and a financial accelerator (Bernanke et al., 1999 Handbook). A monetary expansion increases the propensity of banks to assume risks. In turn, financial risks affect economic activity and prices. This "risk-taking" channel of monetary transmission, absent in pure financial accelerator models, operates via the leverage decisions of banks. The model results match certain features of the data, as emerged in recent panel data studies and in our own time series estimates for the US and the euro area.
Cost Benefit Analysis of the Community Patent
by Jérôme Danguy, Bruno van Pottelsberghe on 23 December 2009
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Category: WORKING PAPERS
Topics: European and global governance, Research, innovation and growth
The creation of a European Community Patent (COMPAT) came a step closer this month when Sweden brokered a preliminary agreement on the issue. In this working paper, Senior Resident Fellow Bruno van Pottelsberghe and Jerome Danguy use simulations to take a look at the advantages, disadvantages, winners and losers from the creation of the COMPAT. They find that it would drastically reduce the relative patenting costs for applicants while generating more income for the European Patent Office and increased savings for the business sector. They also explain that the lost of economic rents for patent attorneys, translators and lawyers specialised in patent litigation and the drop of controlling power for national patent offices may explain why there has been such resistance to the COMPAT thus far.