"Persistent Innovation: A Cross-Country Study of Output and Diversity Over Time", Applied Economics Letters, (SSCI)

This study compares innovation in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and the United States using American patent data. We employ a Markov-chain approach to estimate the relative persistence and diversity of the American patents registered by firms in these four countries. Diversity denotes the propensity of firms to create patents in many different technological areas from one year to the next. We find that in all four countries, firms which patent in many different areas do so perennially. The same is true for firms which patent in similar areas. Persistence refers to the tendency for firms to register a similar number of patents year after year. We find that Japanese firms are more persistent than their American counterparts, and Korean firms are more persistent than Taiwanese firms. These results indicate that Taiwanese firms are similar to firms in other countries in terms of diversity, but may have difficulty maintaining momentum in innovation. If this is the case, the Taiwanese government could provide policy incentives to induce firms which have patented in the past to continue to innovate.