需求冲击、采购政策与医疗创新的性质：来自战时假肢装置专利的证据
Demand Shocks, Procurement Policies, and the Nature of Medical Innovation: Evidence from Wartime Prosthetic Device Patents
Review of Economics and Statistics · 2023 · [{"name": "Jeffrey Clemens", "affiliation": ["University of California System", "University of California San Diego"]}, {"name": "Parker Rogers", "affiliation": ["University of California San Diego"]}]
中文摘要
我们表明，与美国内战和第一次世界大战相关的需求冲击，导致假肢装置专利申请量大幅增加（相对于其他医疗和机械技术类别的专利）。通过对专利文本的分析，我们发现内战促使发明者专注于生产流程改进，而第一次世界大战并非如此。此外，我们发现发明者强调的产品质量维度，与两次战争中买方偏好的差异相一致。结合历史记录中的证据，这些发现表明，采购环境可以显著塑造发明者所从事的科学问题。
Abstract
Abstract We show that the demand shocks associated with the U.S. Civil War and World War I led to substantial increases in prosthetic device patenting (relative to patenting in other medical and mechanical technology classes). Through analyses of patent texts, we find that the Civil War led inventors to focus on production process improvements, while World War I did not. Further, we find that inventors emphasized dimensions of product quality that aligned with differences in buyers’ preferences across wars. Alongside evidence from the historical record, these findings imply that procurement environments can significantly shape the scientific problems with which inventors engage.