Dominique Guellec

• ENSAE graduate
• Consultant at Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques

Artificial intelligence (AI) comprises a range of methods that allow to extract and exploit more information from larger amounts of data. AI is recognised as a transformative technology for most economic activities and for government operations. It might be a driver of economic growth in the coming decades, contribute to improved well-being and hea...

This study proposes a model of the research cycle (the set of events that goes from identifying a scientific issue to providing a verified explanation) which draws on theories from the cognitive sciences. The successive stages of a research cycle are driven by specific cognitive operations: identification of an issue (driven by anomaly detection);...

This paper investigates how digital technologies have shaped the concentration of inventive activity in cities across 30 OECD countries. It finds that patenting is highly concentrated: from 2010 to 2014, 10% of cities accounted for 64% of patent applications to the European Patent Office, with the top five (Tokyo, Seoul, San Francisco, Higashiosaka...

This report discusses how the digital transformation – digital technologies, data and software, AI-based analytics and other advances – is changing innovation processes and outcomes. It highlights the general trends across the economy and factors behind sector-specific dynamics, including increasing use of data as a key input for innovation, the ex...

Public research is expected to fulfil a widening set of objectives, from scientific excellence and economic relevance to contributing to a variety of societal challenges (inclusiveness, gender diversity, sustainability, etc.). Policy makers in ministries and funding agencies have broadened their portfolio of funding instruments and design variants...

This paper looks at how digitalisation is transforming innovation, and the consequent need for innovation policies to adapt. The paper shows that the digital transformation affects the economics of information and knowledge, in particular pricing and allocation. The reduced costs of producing and handling information and knowledge and the increased...

he digital transformation offers new tools for innovation policy analysis. With software developments and increased computing capacities, the possibility to systematically exploit textual information, as illustrated by the analysis of the OECD TIP working party reports that were conducted in the context of the TIP@50 event, has grown enormously. Th...

Income inequalities have increased in most OECD countries over the past decades; particularly the income share of the top 1%. In this paper we argue that the growing importance of digital innovation – new products and processes based on software code and data - has increased market rents, which benefit disproportionately the top income groups. In l...

The development of patent markets should allow for better circulation of knowledge and more efficient allocation of technologies at a global level. However, the beneficial role of patents has recently come under scrutiny by those favouring 'open' innovation, and important questions have been asked, namely: How can we estimate the value of patents?...

La valorisation de la recherche publique est aujourd’hui une pratique très répandue dans la plupart des pays et est un thème central des politiques nationales de recherche et d’innovation. Alors que des progrès importants avaient été réalisés durant les premières années de la mise en place de ces politiques, il semble que leurs résultats aient tend...

La France est un pays de tradition scientifique et technique ancienne et elle occupe aujourd'hui encore une place importante dans le monde dans ce domaine. Cependant, pour stimuler la compétitivité et accélérer la croissance économique, elle doit développer et mieux exploiter son potentiel d'innovation. Cet examen souligne la nécessité d'encourager...

This paper uses latest advances in economic research for examining recent changes in patent regimes aimed at strengthening patent protection, and beyond that, for rethinking the rationale of the patent system. Considering that economic theory does not regard patents as a natural right that should be systematically granted to inventors, but as a pol...

This paper describes a new patent-based indicator of inventive activity. The indicator is based on counting all the priority patent applications filed by a country’s inventors, regardless of the patent office in which the application is filed, and can therefore be considered as a complete ‘matrix’ of all patent counts. The method has the advantage...

This paper brings together the latest data and OECD productivity indicators in different areas with the aim of reviewing the main productivity trends over the past decade, comparing the United States, Europe and to some extent Japan. Concerning economy wide indicators of productivity, the slowdown appears to be due to a significant slowdown in inve...

We investigate statistically the characteristics, functioning and incidence of pre-emptive patenting, defined as patent filings whose main effect is to hamper the grant of other patents. Patent applications can be used defensively to prevent the grant of exclusive rights over markets and technologies, in order to ensure freedom of operation or keep...

By using survey data on a large sample of European patents, we estimate the determinants of a composite indicator of patent value that summarizes information from many indirect indicators commonly employed by the literature. The elasticity of man-months on the value of one patent is small, 4%, while that on the number of patents in the portfolio of...

La teoría económica, al considerar que las patentes son instrumentos de política pública para fomentar la innovación y la difusión de la tecnología, conduce principalmente a tres conclusiones. En primer lugar, las patentes no tienen por qué ser siempre el medio de protección más eficaz para que los inventores recuperen sus inversiones en I+D, sobre...

This paper discusses methods for the harmonization and combination of large-scale patent and trademark datasets with each other and other sources of data. Dictionary- and rule-based approaches to the consolidation of applicant names in patent data are presented and shown to have both benefits and drawbacks in isolation. We combine the two methods a...

Global policy discussions increasingly focus on innovation and the knowledge economy as a driver of long-term growth. In parallel new forms of innovation processes are emerging, notably open innovation and innovation networks stressing the importance of connections between various stakeholders. Links between universities and the business sector are...

The size of patent applications has doubled over the past two decades, resulting in a dramatic surge in the workload of patent offices all over the world and serious concerns over patent quality standards. The current paper investigates the sources of this inflation in claims and pages for EPO applications. Four hypotheses are quantitatively examin...

There has been renewed divergence of GDP per capita among OECD countries over the past decade: Whereas the relatively less advanced countries tended to catch up with the leader, the US, from the late 1940s to the late 1980s, the situation has reversed since the mid-1990s. While GDP growth was accelerating in the US, it was just slowing down in most...

The increasing importance of licensing for innovation is supported by ample anecdotal evidence. However, statistics on this topic are scarce. The OECD, together with the European Patent Office and the University of Tokyo, carried out a business survey on the licensing-out of patents. The goal was to investigate the intensity of licensing to affilia...

The OECD is developing a strategic response to the crisis focusing on two priority areas: finance, competition and governance; and restoring long-term growth. As part of this strategic response, the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) has analysed the likely impact of the downturn on the drivers of long term economic growth...

We investigate statistically the characteristics, functioning and incidence of pre-emptive patenting, defined as patent filings whose main effect is to hamper the grant of other patents. Patent applications can be used to prevent the grant of exclusive rights on markets and technologies to others in order to ensure freedom of operation to their hol...

Facilitating the mobilisation, sharing, or exchange of patents is increasingly important to promote innovation in this globalised and well-networked world, where the circulation of ideas and technologies is essential to innovation. In the context of open innovation, patents are expected to play a role as a means for transferring ideas and technolog...

The OECD REGPAT database presents patent data that have been linked to regions according to the addresses of the applicants and inventors. The data have been 'regionalised' at a very detailed level so that more than 2 000 regions are covered across OECD countries. REGPAT allows patent data to be used in connection with other regional data such as G...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at the sharp increase in academic patenting over the past 20 years and to raise important issues regarding the generation and diffusion of academic knowledge. Three key questions may be raised in this respect: What is behind the surge in academic patenting? Does patenting affect the quality and quantit...

Patent filings worldwide have been subject to a combined growth in terms of the number of applications filed and their size. This is putting patent systems under tremendous pressure, as witnessed by the evolution of backlogs at several patent offices. The present article presents an analysis of the evolution in patent voluminosity observed at the E...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

Why does society allow, or even encourage, private appropriation of inventions? When do patents encourage competition, when do they hamper it? How should society design the compromise between the interest of the inventor and the interest of the users of patented inventions? How should the patent system adapt to new technological areas? These questi...

As the role of patents has become central in the knowledge economy, there is evidence that the current institutional and legal setting is unable to cope with the corresponding challenges. This difficulty is illustrated by the explosion of patent numbers and voluminosity, by recent controversies around genes and software, and by the inability of Eur...

'Patent design' is the discipline which studies the substantive features of the patent system (subject matter, inventive step, scope, duration) from the point of view of their economic effects. From an economic perspective, a 'good patent system' is one which encourages inventions and does not hamper their diffusion. This dual test is applied when...

This chapter investigates the rationale of patents, their economic role, and the circumstances in which they are the most effective. The utilitarian theory considers patents as an incentive - a policy instrument used by society for encouraging inventions. Patents are a response to the public good nature of knowledge, which makes imitation easier th...

This chapter addresses the genesis and evolution of the patent system, since the first patent statute was issued in Venice in 1471, until the international harmonization pressures of patent regimes at the end of 20th century. The European Patent Office (EPO), which began its activity in 1978, has established a common examination procedure and commo...

The patent system has been faced for more than ten years with an avalanche of patent filings, which puts into question its ability to fulfil its social mission of encouraging innovation and the diffusion of technology. This situation is due to the emergence of new technologies, the adoption of new and more aggressive IP strategies by the business s...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

Economic theory views patents as policy instruments aimed at fostering innovation and diffusion. Three major implications are drawn regarding current policy debates. First, patents may not be the most effective means of protection for inventors to recover R&D investments when imitation is costly and first mover advantages are important. Second, pat...

This paper presents three new patent-based indicators of internationalisation of knowledge generation. They measure the extent of international cooperation in research and the international location of research facilities associated with multinational firms — i.e., cross-border ownership. These indicators are based on triadic patent data (patent fa...

To provide additional insight into the factors that have contributed to the growth in patenting, the OECD collaborated with the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) in 2003 to conduct a survey of businesses regarding their patenting and licensing practices. The purpose of the survey was to gather qualitative information that...

Patent regimes have gone through important changes in the past two decades, most of them in the direction of ‘strengthening patent rights’, in the sense of reinforcing the exclusive rights conferred to patent holders and expanding their coverage. OECD countries have experienced an upward harmoni-sation of their patent regimes based on the view that...

This paper presents estimates of the long-term impact of various sources of knowledge (R&D performed by the business sector, the public sector and foreign firms) on multifactor productivity growth of 16 countries from 1980 to 1998. The main results show that the three sources of knowledge are significant determinants of long-term productivity growt...

The invention of moving types printing by Gutenberg This article uses economic theory for analysing the invention and diffusion of mechanical printing. Major conclusions are as follows. The invention of moving types printing by Gutenberg results from the expansion of demand for writings at the end of the Middle Ages in Europe (demand pull). It is a...

We introduce a new hybrid approach to joint estimation of Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) for high quantiles of return distributions. We investigate the relative performance of VaR and ES models using daily returns for sixteen stock market indices (eight from developed and eight from emerging markets) prior to and during the 2008 fi...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

The paper describes the dynamics of employment at a firm and sector level in French industry and examines how far technological innovation can give account of it. We use a sample of 15,186 firms, over the period 1986–90. The two facts we want to explain at a firm and sector level are the net change in employment and the micro turmoil (transfers bet...

This paper attempts to quantify the aggregate net effect of government funding on business R&D in 17 OECD Member countries over the past two decades. Grants, procurement, tax incentives and direct performance of research (in public laboratories or universities) are the major policy tools in the field. The major results of the study are the followin...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

This paper explores the determinants of the probability for a patent application to result in a grant (as opposed to being rejected by the patent office or withdrawn by the patentee). A grant is interpreted as signaling the value of the invention. Guellec and van Pottelsberghe (2000) studied the common determinants for OECD countries and technologi...

This study investigates the long-term effects of various types of R&D on multi-factor productivity growth, which are the spillover effects of R&D activities. Econometric estimates are conducted on a panel of 16 OECD countries, over the period 1980-98. All results are averages over countries and time, and little can be said about country specificiti...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

A vast and often confusing economics literature relates competition to investment in innovation. Following Joseph Schumpeter, one view is that monopoly and large scale promote investment in research and development by allowing a firm to capture a larger fraction of its benefits and by providing a more stable platform for a firm to invest in R&D. Ot...

Les politiques de soutien à l’innovation technologique font appel à un ensemble très diversifié d’instruments, tels le brevet, les subventions, les marchés publics, les aides fiscales ou la recherche publique. L’objet de cet article est d’examiner ces instruments sous l’angle de la théorie économique. La condition traditionnellement donnée à l’inte...

This study investigates the long-term effects of various types of R&D on multifactor productivity growth, which is the spillover effect of R&D. Econometric estimates are conducted on a panel of 16 OECD countries, over the period 1980-98. All results are averages over countries and time, and little can be said about country specificities. Major res...

We model the links between skills and changes in work organization. As the proportion of skilled workers increases, the economy travels through a sequence of organizational equilibria. We show that as the relative supply of skills increases the organization of work becomes more decentralized. Both skilled and unskilled workers become more autonomou...

Public Support for Technological Innovation in the Light of Economic Theory. Policies supporting technological innovation rely on a wide variety of instruments, such as patents, subsidies, public procurement, tax breaks and public research. The purpose of this article is to examine these instruments in the light of economic theory. The condition tr...

Cette étude analyse les effets de long terme de différents types de R-D sur la croissance de la productivité totale des facteurs, qui sont les effets « spillover » de la R-D. Les estimations économétriques sont conduites sur un panel de 16 pays de l'OCDE sur la période 1980-98. Les résultats obtenus sont des moyennes sur l'ensemble des pays et des...

The purpose of this text is to highlight certain limitations of the traditional approach to positive research externalities, in the current context of knowledge-based economies (Section 2). We shall start by showing that the two basic assumptions equating knowledge with information and limiting agent interaction to competitive commercial exchanges...

We introduce a new hybrid approach to joint estimation of Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) for high quantiles of return distributions. We investigate the relative performance of VaR and ES models using daily returns for sixteen stock market indices (eight from developed and eight from emerging markets) prior to and during the 2008 fi...

This paper investigates the effect of the major R&D policy instruments on business funded R&D expenditure. The analysis covers 17 OECD countries over the period 1981-1996. It is found that government funding of R&D performed by business firms and tax relieves have a positive impact on privately financed R&D. The two policy tools are more effective...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

This paper attempts to quantify the aggregate net effect of government funding on business R&D in 17 OECD Member countries over the past two decades. Grants, procurement, tax incentives and direct performance of research (in public laboratories or universities) are the major policy tools in the field. The major results of the study are the followin...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

Cet article analyse l'incidence de la R-D financée par les pouvoirs publics et des incitations fiscales sur les investissements privés en R-D. L'analyse couvre 17 pays de l'OCDE sur la période 1981-1996. Les principales conclusions sont les suivantes: i) la R-D financée par les pouvoirs publics et les incitations fiscales stimulent la R-D privée ;...

Pourquoi la croissance a-t-elle été moindre au cours des vingt-cinq dernières années que durant les Trente Glorieuses ? Quelles sont les conséquences de ce ralentissement sur le fonctionnement des économies ? La thèse avancée dans cet article est celle d'un retour des économies occidentales sur la frontière technologique, situation similaire à cell...

The purpose of the study is to characterize different styles of work organization in French firms and their current changes and to link them to the use of specific technologies and to firms performance. The data which are used arc of two kinds: a labor force survey (1 470 blue collar) and a business survey (7 089 firms). We show that two main varia...

Les dépenses de R-D des entreprises ont connu un tassement dans la plupart des pays de l'OCDE à la fin des années 80 et au début des années 90, après plusieurs décennies de progression régulière. Elles se sont redressées dans certains pays depuis lors. La présente étude analyse les facteurs déterminants de ces dépenses dans un cadre économétrique,...

Endogenous growth models underline the impact of externalities. They result in a decentralized equilibrium rate of growth which is not socially efficient. The Cease theorem states that a necessary condition for such an inefficiency is the positivity of transaction costs which prevent the agents from contracting on the gains that could be realized....

[eng] Externalities and information asymmetry in a model of growth. . Endogenous growth models underline the impact of externalities. They result in a decen­tralized equilibrium rate of growth which is not socially efficient. The Coase theorem states that a necessary condition for such an inefficiency is the positivity of transaction costs which pr...

The purpose of the paper is to show how firm organization may change due to endogenous technical change. The firm is depicted as an organization where a collective knowledge on manufacturing (mastering and improving existing technology) is built through learning by doing, requiring coordination between workers within the workshop. Two styles of coo...

Work Organization, Technology and Performance: An Empirical Study, by Dominique Guellec and Nathalie Greenan. The purpose of this study is to pinpoint the main features and development of the various ways of organizing production in French companies. These methods are then linked to the technologies employed and the firms' performances. The data...

The Patent, a Means of Owning Technological Innovations Companies can only make their research expenditure pay if they are able to reap the profits of their innovations. The patent fulfils this role from a legal point of view by giving its holder a monopoly over the use of his invention. Economic theory is probing the consequences of these monopoli...