This paper estimates the process of diffusion and decay of knowledge from university, public laboratories and corporate patents in six countries and tests the differences across countries and across ...technological fields using data from the European Patent Office. It finds that university and public research patents are more cited relatively to companies' patents. However these results are mainly driven by the Chemical, Drugs & Medical, and Mechanical fields and US universities. In Europe and Japan, where the great majority of patents from public research come from national agencies, there is no evidence of a superior fertility of university and public laboratory patents vis à vis corporate patents. The distribution of the citation lags shows that knowledge embedded in university and public research patents tends to diffuse more rapidly relative to corporate ones in particular in the US, Germany, France and Japan.
Using survey data, we investigate household financial distress. Specifically, we propose an indicator of financial vulnerability to jointly analyse different features of household financial distress, ...analysing its socio-demographic and economic determinants. A total number of 3102 Italian households make up the sample.
The empirical analysis highlights that for the median level of the financial vulnerability index households already exhibit some important symptoms of financial vulnerability, such as problems in getting to the end of the month or an inability to face unexpected expenses. As regards the determinants of the financial vulnerability index, three findings need to be pointed out. First, the level of debt servicing is positively related to financial vulnerability and the effect is stronger for households holding unsecured debt, i.e. consumer credit. Second, financial vulnerability also increases for impulsive individuals, who may adopt impatient, short-sighted behaviour patterns which make it difficult for them to be fully aware of the consequences of their financial and spending decisions. Third, a higher level of education helps to reduce financial fragility.
► We create an indicator of financial vulnerability. ► We use survey data to analyse the determinants of household financial vulnerability. ► We find that household debt, specifically consumer credit, increases household vulnerability. ► Emotions may also influence money management and sustainability of personal debt. ► We also find that a higher level of education helps to reduce financial fragility.
The objective of the paper is to test the effect of firm size and business experience on export performance. In fact, despite a growing number of empirical studies, the question of the relationship ...between these variables is not clearly established. This research aims at contributing to a better understanding of these complex relationships with a special focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors develop a general model and test it using a sample of Italian manufacturing firms that spans the 1997–2001 period. Combining a time-series with a cross-sectional analysis, they use an econometric model in order to test the relationships. Their findings provide a strong support for both relationships. The results show that it is not business experience per se which is important but that it is the relative change in experience that truly impacts upon export performance. The model also reveals that industry effects are relevant.
The paper shows the impact of privatization and liberalization on consumers in the telecommunication sector for 15 EU countries. Policy reforms are summarized by the OECD regulatory indicators ...(REGREF) that consider the extent of privatization, vertical disintegration, and market entry. After controlling for other country variables, first, a test of the impact of ownership and regulatory changes on consumer prices is given. In the second step, the Eurobarometer data on consumers' satisfaction about quality and prices of the telecommunication service are considered. The analysis confirms the importance of market regulation in reducing prices but minimizes the role played by privatization per se. Overall, the findings offer only mixed evidence, and somehow contradict, the hypothesis that all the reforms work in a similar way across the EU countries.
This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the purchasing power parity (PPP) over the post-Bretton Woods period by providing a time-series based interpretation of the controversial ...evidence characterizing the dynamics of real exchange rates. It is shown that the persistence of deviations from the PPP between a set of European countries and the United States may be empirically attributed to the presence of I(2) stochastic trends in prices using Consumer Price Indices. Interestingly, the slow adjustment towards the equilibrium can be modelled through 'integral-proportional' equilibrium correction models and this evidence can be partly reconciled with theories where the inflation rate reduces the markup of profit-maximizing firms acting on imperfectly competitive markets.
In this paper the impact of privatization on macroeconomic performance in the United Kingdom is tested using quarterly data from 1979 to 1999. Privatization proceeds have been included in a simple ...analytical framework dealing with both demand and supply-side of the economy. Multivariate cointegration techniques have been used in order to consider the nonstationarity of the time series involved. The empirical results show that privatizations have no long-run effects on output in the UK. This result is consistent with microeconomic evidence that shows that in the UK ownership change per se had little impact on long term productivity trends. Moreover it is found that privatization proceeds have contributed to sustaining public expenditures.
EPO vs. USPTO Citation Lags Montobbio, Fabio; Bacchiocchi, E
IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc,
01/2004
Paper
Odprti dostop
This paper estimates the diffusion and obsolescence of technological knowledge by technological field, country and type of institutions that generates it. We use two comparable samples of patents and ...patent citations from the NBER U.S. Patent Citations Dataset (based on patents from the US Patent Office) and from the EP Cespri Dataset (based on patents from the European Patent Office). Using a quasi-structural model, as proposed by Caballero and Jaffe (1993) and discussed in Hall et al. (2001), We test whether the observed processes of knowledge diffusion and obsolescence reflect the specific institutional mechanism generating them. Results show that at the USPTO there are more citations per patent due to the different rules governing citation practices and that their median lag is twice as large relatively to the citations at the EPO. We also find that the relative properties of the citation frequencies indifferent technological fields change according to the patent office considered.
Severe immune-related adverse events (irAEs) occur in up to 60% of patients with melanoma treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). However, it is unknown whether a common baseline ...immunological state precedes irAE development. Here we applied mass cytometry by time of flight, single-cell RNA sequencing, single-cell V(D)J sequencing, bulk RNA sequencing and bulk T cell receptor (TCR) sequencing to study peripheral blood samples from patients with melanoma treated with anti-PD-1 monotherapy or anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 combination ICIs. By analyzing 93 pre- and early on-ICI blood samples and 3 patient cohorts (n = 27, 26 and 18), we found that 2 pretreatment factors in circulation-activated CD4 memory T cell abundance and TCR diversity-are associated with severe irAE development regardless of organ system involvement. We also explored on-treatment changes in TCR clonality among patients receiving combination therapy and linked our findings to the severity and timing of irAE onset. These results demonstrate circulating T cell characteristics associated with ICI-induced toxicity, with implications for improved diagnostics and clinical management.
Mutations in sunlight-induced melanoma arise from cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs), DNA photoproducts that are typically created picoseconds after an ultraviolet (UV) photon is absorbed at ...thymine or cytosine. We found that in melanocytes, CPDs are generated for >3 hours after exposure to UVA, a major component of the radiation in sunlight and in tanning beds. These ``dark CPDs'' constitute the majority of CPDs and include the cytosine-containing CPDs that initiate UV-signature C→T mutations. Dark CPDs arise when UV-induced reactive oxygen and nitrogen species combine to excite an electron in fragments of the pigment melanin. This creates a quantum triplet state that has the energy of a UV photon but induces CPDs by energy transfer to DNA in a radiation-independent manner. Melanin may thus be carcinogenic as well as protective against cancer. These findings also validate the long-standing suggestion that chemically generated excited electronic states are relevant to mammalian biology.
Surrogate biomarkers of efficacy are needed for anti-PD1/PD-L1 therapy, given the existence of delayed responses and pseudo-progressions. We evaluated changes in serum IL-8 levels as a biomarker of ...response to anti-PD-1 blockade in melanoma and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.
Metastatic melanoma and NSCLC patients treated with nivolumab or pembrolizumab alone or nivolumab plus ipilimumab were studied. Serum was collected at baseline; at 2–4 weeks after the first dose; and at the time-points of response evaluation. Serum IL-8 levels were determined by sandwich ELISA. Changes in serum IL-8 levels were compared with the Wilcoxon test and their strength of association with response was assessed with the Mann–Whitney test. Accuracy of changes in IL-8 levels to predict response was estimated using receiver operation characteristics curves.
Twenty-nine melanoma patients treated with nivolumab or pembrolizumab were studied. In responding patients, serum IL-8 levels significantly decreased between baseline and best response (P <0.001), and significantly increased upon progression (P = 0.004). In non-responders, IL-8 levels significantly increased between baseline and progression (P = 0.013). Early changes in serum IL-8 levels (2–4 weeks after treatment initiation) were strongly associated with response (P <0.001). These observations were validated in 19 NSCLC patients treated with nivolumab or pembrolizumab (P = 0.001), and in 15 melanoma patients treated with nivolumab plus ipilimumab (P <0.001). Early decreases in serum IL-8 levels were associated with longer overall survival in melanoma (P = 0.001) and NSCLC (P = 0.015) patients. Serum IL-8 levels also correctly reflected true response in three cancer patients presenting pseudoprogression.
Changes in serum IL-8 levels could be used to monitor and predict clinical benefit from immune checkpoint blockade in melanoma and NSCLC patients.
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