BIOGRAPHY
I am a professor in the Strategy area at the Fuqua School of Business of Duke University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). My research investigates the role of business in advancing science. Through various lenses and perspectives, my work aims to deepen our understanding of why American corporations participate in scientific research and why they have been cutting back on this activity over the past four decades. Using data on corporate scientific articles and patents, my work develops large-scale empirical measures of research and development and the application of science to technology. With these data, we document how corporate investment in scientific research has evolved over time and study implications for the American innovation ecosystem. We investigate several reasons for why firms withdraw from research, including rising knowledge spillovers and growing division of innovative labor, whereby large firms specialize in downstream development and universities specialize in upstream research. We observe that the innovation ecosystem is changing, corporate labs are declining, and perhaps more is being sought from universities and startups. These findings have important consequences for strategy and economic policy. For strategy, they imply that sources of corporate growth may lie in acquisitions of startups, alliances, and extensions of existing products. For economic policy, challenges may lie in managing the tradeoff between benefits from specialization and the difficulty of commercializing university research.
In separate work, I also study how firm organizational structure is related to corporate strategy and economic outcomes. My research has been featured in top academic journals, such as Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Research Policy and Journal of Law and Economics. I received my PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science and completed post-doctorate work at the University of Oxford, Nuffield College. I was the ‘07 recipient of the Kauffman foundation post-doctorate fellowship at the NBER. I earned MA and BA degrees in Economics from Tel-Aviv University, Israel. I have been an Associate Editor for Management Science from January 2016 and for Strategic Management Journal from July 2016.
Research interests: Corporate Science, Innovation Ecosystems, Ownership Structures, Organization Design
Teaching: Corporate Strategy (MBA, EMBA, MMS), Emerging Markets Strategy (MBA, EMBA), Economics of Innovation (PhD)
Innovation
The Effect of Public Science on Corporate R&D (with Ashish Arora, Larisa Cioaca and Lis Sheer)
(When) Does Patent Protection Spur Cumulative Research Within Firms? (with Ashish Arora, Matt Marx and Dror Shvadron), forthcoming in Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, NBER Working Paper 28880
The Rise of Scientific Research in Corporate America (with Ashish Arora, Konstantin Kosenko, JK Suh and Yishay Yafeh), NBER Working Paper 29260
Guaranteed Public Demand and Corporate Scientific Research (with Larisa Cioaca), NBER Working Paper 28644 Policy brief
Science and the market for technology (with Ashish Arora and JK Suh), forthcoming in Management Science
First mover advantage and the private value of public science (with Ashish Arora and Bernardo Dionisi), NBER Working Paper 28533
Matching Patents to Compustat Firms, 1980-2015: Dynamic Reassignment, Name Changes, and Ownership Structures (with Ashish Arora and Lia Sheer), forthcoming in Research Policy
Knowledge spillovers and corporate investment in scientific research (with Ashish Arora and Lia Sheer), American Economic Review 2021 111 (3): 871-988. Data slides, Data appendix, DISCERN (Duke Innovation & SCientific Enterprises Research Network)
Why the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem Is Slowing Down (with Ashish Arora, Andrea Patacconi and JK Suh), Harvard Business Review (online), November 26, 2019
The changing structure of American innovation: Some cautionary remarks for economic growth (with Ashish Arora, Andrea Patacconi and JK Suh), published in Innovation Policy and the Economy handbook, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2019. Media coverage: Marginal Revolution, Conversable Economist
Science and the Market for Technology (with Ashish Arora and JK Suh), Revise and Resubmit in Management Science
A theory of the U.S. innovation ecosystem: Evolution, diversity, and efficiency (with Ashish Arora and Andrea Patacconi), Forthcoming in Industrial and Corporate Change Special Issue in Honor of Nate Rosenberg
Reverse Citations and Localized Knowledge Spillovers (with Ashish Arora and Honggi Lee), Journal of Economic Geography, Volume 18, Issue 3, 1 May 2018, Pages 495–521, IMPULSES
Papers to patents: The withdrawal of large US corporations from research is narrowing the scope of innovation (with Ashish Arora and Andrea Patacconi), Comment, Nature 552, S10, 7 December 2017. Additional analysis: A firm shift (with Ashish Arora and Andrea Patacconi), Nature 552, S10 (7 December 2017)
The decline of science in corporate R&D (with Ashish Arora and Andrea Patacconi), Strategic Management Journal 39(1): 3-32, January 2018 (lead article). Main media coverage: Washington Post, New York Times, Fortune (December 10, 2015), Fortune (December 21, 2015), Vox, CBS radio (San Francisco), Science, The Observer, Brookings Institution, The Chronicle, Congressional briefing, Financial Times, The Atlantic. Special event presentations: “The Decline in Corporate Research: Should We Worry?” (Washington, March 31, 2017). Congressional Briefing (Washington, June 6, 2017), with Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), Co-chair, Senate Competitiveness Caucus. "The Decline of Science in Corporate R&D. Implications for policy, strategy and innovation," Academy of Management 2017 Annual Meeting. 2017 NBER Innovation Summer Institute panel: "Is Short-Termism Killing the American Innovation Engine?"
Motivation and Sorting of Human Capital in Open Innovation (with Mark Schankerman), Strategic Management Journal 36: 795–820, June 2015 (lead article)
Make, Buy, Organize: The Interplay Between R&D, External Knowledge, and Firm Structure (with Ashish Arora and Luis Rios), Strategic Management Journal 35: 317–337, March 2014
Innovation and firm value: An investigation of the changing role of patents, 1985-2007 (with Andrea Patacconi), Research Policy 42(8): 1496-1510, September 2013
Spreading the Word: Geography, Policy and Knowledge Spillovers (with Mark Schankerman), Review of Economics and Statistics 95(3): 884-903, July 2013
Cumulative Innovation and Market Value: Evidence from Patent Citations, Economic Journal 559(122): 265-285, March 2012. Media coverage: Washington Post, July 3, 2012; VOX, July 3, 2012
University Knowledge Transfer: Private Ownership, Incentives, and Local Development Objectives (with Mark Schankerman), Journal of Law and Economics 52(1): 111-144, February 2009
How does firm size mediate firms' ability to benefit from invention? Evidence from patents and scientific publications (with Andrea Patacconi), European Management Review 11(1): 21-45, Spring 2014
Innovation in Business Groups (with Tomer Berkovitz), Management Science 56(3): 519-535, March 2010
Intracompany governance and innovation (with Patrick Bolton and Tomer Berkovitz), 2009 NBER working paper (unpublished)
Organization
Knowledge Sharing in Alliances and Alliance Portfolios (with Ashish Arora and Andrea Patacconi), Management Science 67 (3) 1569-1585
Flexible Production and Entry: Institutional, Technological, and Organizational Determinants (with Victor Bennet and Andrea Patacconi), Strategy Science 4(3), September 2019: 175-249
The architecture of attention: Group structure and subsidiary autonomy (with Niron Hashai and Andrea Patacconi), Strategic Management Journal 40(10): 1610-1643, 2019
Manager's Age and the Performance of Closely Held Firms (with Anastasiya Shmshur and Rebecca Zarutskie), Strategic Management Journal (40): 917-944, June 2019
Choosing between Growth and Glory (with Ronnie Chatterji and Brendan Daley), Forthcoming in Management Science
Eponymous Entrepreneurs (with Aaron Chatterji and Brendan Daly), American Economic Review 107(6):1638-55, June 2017, watch video. Main media coverage: The Economist, LSE Business Review, EIX, Financial Times
Towards a legal theory of the firm: The effects of limited liability laws on asset partitioning, decentralization and organizational growth (with Honggi Lee and Andrea Patacconi), NBER Working Paper 24720. Media coverage: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation: Enterprise Liability and the Organization of Production Across Countries
An asset partitioning perspective on corporate groups (with Honggi Lee and Andrea Patacconi)
Married to the firm? A large scale investigation of the social context of ownership (with Andrea Patacconi and Rebecca Zarutskie), Strategic Management Journal 37(13): 2611-2638, November 2015
Market Frictions and the the Competitive Advantage of Internal Labor Markets (with Ulya Tsolmon), Strategic Management Journal 37: 1280–1303, July 2016
Capital markets and firm organization: How financial development shapes European corporate groups (with Tomer Berkovitz and Luis Rios), Management Science 59: 1326-1343, June 2013
DATA
DISCERN (Duke Innovation & SCientific Enterprises Research Network): patents and scientific articles matched to Compustat firms over the period 1980-2015.
POLICY
The changing structure of American innovation, March 2023
A new Sputnik moment?, 12 August, 2023
Protecting America’s advantage, 16 May 2022
American Science And Technology Leadership Under Threat: Restrictive Antitrust Legislation And Growing Global Competition, 25 May 2022
Slide Deck: American Innovation Under Threat: Restrictive Legislation And Global Competition, 29 November 2021
U.S. Technological Innovation Needs Government Procurement to Succeed, 3 February 2022
OTHER
Patent 10,007,882 (June 26, 2018; USPTO): System, Method and Apparatus to Determine Associations Among Digital Documents