What can explain the Chinese patent explosion?

Eberhardt, Markus; Helmers, Christian; Yu, Zhihong

Abstract

We analyse the ‘explosion’ of patent filings by Chinese residents both domestically and in the United States during the early 2000s, employing a unique dataset of 374,000 firms matching patent applications to manufacturing census data. Our analysis reveals that patenting is highly concentrated among a small number of firms, operating in the information and communication technology sector. Although increases in patent filings by these companies are partly driven by increased R&D intensity, our analysis suggests that the explosion of patent filings at the Chinese patent office is driven by factors other than underlying innovative behavior, including government subsidies that encourage patent filings directly.

Citation

Eberhardt, M., Helmers, C., & Yu, Z. (2017). What can explain the Chinese patent explosion?. Oxford Economic Papers, 69(1), 239-262. https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpw042

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 16, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Sep 11, 2016
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 23, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 12, 2018
• Journal: Oxford Economic Papers
• Print ISSN: 0030-7653
• Electronic ISSN: 0030-7653
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 69
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 239-262
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpw042
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/830658
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/oep/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/oep/gpw042
• Additional Information: This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Oxford Economic Papers following peer review. The version of record Markus Eberhardt, Christian Helmers, Zhihong Yu; What can explain the Chinese patent explosion?. Oxf Econ Pap 2017; 69 (1): 239-262. doi: 10.1093/oep/gpw042 is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/oep/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/oep/gpw042