Title: Interregional mobility, productivity and the value of patents for prolific inventors in France, Germany and the UK

Authors: William Latham, Christian Le Bas, Jawel Riad Bouklia-Hassane, Dmitry Volodin

Addresses: Department of Economics, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19711, USA. ' GATE Lyon St. Etienne, CNRS UMR 5824, Universite de Lyon, 93 Chemin des mouilles, 69130 Ecully, France. ' Laboratoire d'Economie de la Firme et des Institutions, Universite Lumiere Lyon 2, 14, avenue Berthelot 69363 LYON cedex 07, France. ' Department of Economics, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19711, USA

Abstract: Regional creative resources include inventors. Policies conducive to inventors| productivity or attracting productive inventors promote regional development. We build on prior work on inventor mobility and productivity, analysing German, French and British patents filed in the USA by 7500 |prolific| inventors (15 or more inventions). We measure inventor mobility across regions, companies and technologies. We analyse the relationships among mobility, productivity and value. We find geographic mobility increases inventor productivity in the UK and France but not in Germany and geographic mobility is not related to the value of inventions except in Germany where it has a negative effect.

Keywords: patents; interregional mobility; prolific inventors; patent value; inventor productivity; geographic mobility; intellectual property; France; Germany; UK; United Kingdom; regional development; USA; company mobility; technological mobility; United States; inventions; foresight; innovation policies; innovative business resources; economic development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFIP.2011.040068

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy, 2011 Vol.7 No.1/2/3, pp.92 - 113

Published online: 25 Apr 2015 *

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