Inducement prizes and innovation
By: Liam Brunt, Josh Lerner, Tom Nicholas
Contributors: Lerner, Joshua; Nicholas, Tom, 1971-; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 11-118; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 11-118.
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 46
Description: We examine the effect of prizes on innovation using data on awards for technological development offered by the Royal Agricultural Society of England at annual competitions between 1839 and 1939. We find large effects of the prizes on competitive entry and the quality of contemporaneous patents, especially when prize categories were set by a strict rotation scheme, thereby mitigating the potentially confounding effect that they targeted only "hot" technology sectors. The prizes encouraged competition and medals were particularly effective. The boost to innovation we observe can only be partly explained by the re-direction of existing inventive activity
Notes: "May 2011" -- Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references.