The Impact of Military Technology Development on Innovation: Evidence from Prewar and Wartime Japanese Secret Patents

Kotani, Atsuki：Kentaro Nakajima：Tetsuji Okazaki：Yukiko U. Saito
25-E-093 RIETI Discussion Paper Series （2025/09/01）

Innovations in military technology potentially drive significant societal transformations through applications to civilian use. This study aims to quantitatively measure the impact of military technology development on civilian innovation activities using prewar and wartime Japanese patent data from 1916 to 1945. By exploiting Japan's …

The role of human interaction in innovation: evidence from the 1918 influenza pandemic in Japan

Inoue, Hiroyasu：Kentaro Nakajima：Tetsuji Okazaki：Yukiko U. Saito
『The Japanese Economic Review』 Vol.76 No.3 pp.795-820 （2025/06/19）

This study empirically investigates human interaction’s role in innovation by exploiting the 1918 influenza pandemic in Japan from 1918 to 1921, which prohibitively incr…

The determinants of parallel invention: Measuring the role of information sharing and personal interaction between inventors

Kang, Byeongwoo:Rudi Bekkers:Atsushi Ohyama
『Research Policy』 Vol. 53 Issue 10 pp. 1-16 （2024/12/01）

There is abundant evidence that individuals create similar ideas independently at about the same time. While this phenomenon has often been documented, its underlying mechanisms have been understudied empirically. This study investigates two of such mechanisms implied by the theoretical work of Amabile (1983, 1988), Nonaka (1994), and …

Language Barriers and the Speed of Knowledge Diffusion

Higham, Kyle: Sadao Nagaoka
22-E-074 RIETI Discussion Paper Series （2022/08/18）

Multilayer patent citation networks: A comprehensive analytical framework for studying explicit technological relationships

Higham, Kyle: Martina Contisciani: Caterina De Bacco
『Technological Forecasting and Social Change』 Vol. 179 （2022/06/01）

The use of patent citation networks as research tools is becoming increasingly commonplace in the field of innovation studies. However, these networks rarely consider the contexts in which these citations are generated and are generally restricted to a single jurisdiction. Here, we propose and explore the use of a multilayer network fr…

Patent Quality: Towards a Systematic Framework for Analysis and Measurement

Higham, Kyle:Gaétan de Rassenfosse:Adam B. Jaffe
『Research Policy』 Vol. 50 Issue 4 （2021/05/01）

The quality of novel technological innovations is extremely variable, and the ability to measure innovation quality is essential to sensible, evidence-based policy. Patents, an often vital precursor to a commercialised innovation, share this heterogeneous quality distribution. A pertinent question then arises: How should we define and …

Impact of Academic Patenting on Scientific Publication Quality at the Project Level

Kang, Byeongwoo
『Asian Journal of Technology Innovation』 Vol. 29 Issue 2 pp. 258-282, refereed （2020/07/31）

This paper investigates the relationship between patenting and publishing at the project level. It uses Japan’s Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research database. Japan’s …