Objectives

The Regional Government of Madrid (Comunidad de Madrid) funds the project Finance, innovation and Strategy: Economic Analysis of Firm Productivity and its Determinants (PRODECON-CM HM S2015/HUM-3491) for the period 2016-2018.

This project focuses on firm behavior and studies two aspects related to innovation. First, we analyze the characteristics of innovation and how this is carried out. Second, we study some of the determinants that facilitate this innovation related to new information technologies and financial institutions.

PRODECON-CM is articulated around five main goals:

  1. Patents and Knowledge Transfer: Theoretical and empirical work aimed at studying technology transfer and the value of patents owned by firms and/or invented in the public research sector. It will also study the incentives of firms to hire academic researchers.

  2. Patents and Complementary Innovations: Theoretical work aimed at understanding the incentives for firms to license and litigate patents that cover complementary innovations.

  3. Information Technologies: Analysis of the determinants of the adoption of IT by firms. Effects of service bundling by telecommunications companies on competition and welfare.

  4. Product Design in the New Economy: Endogenize product design and study the effect of consumer search of these attributes on firm behavior.

  5. Intermediation and Firm Financing: Analysis of the effects of different financing sources on firm innovation, including banking regulation and the use of intellectual property as collateral.