Economics21 Opinion: How to Boost Patents, by Charles Hughes
This post originally appeared in Economics21 on June 20, 2017.
The rate of meaningful innovation appears to have slowed, with negative consequences for economic growth and living standards. To try to understand these changes and why they are happening, it is worth learning from past episodes when American innovation was in the ascendancy, a key driver helping America become the most powerful economy in the world.
What factors were conducive to patenting in this period? How as the rate of patenting related to growth and mobility? In the past, invention was an important mechanism for social mobility.