← Search

Agricultural Biotechnology's Complementary Intellectual Assets

G. D. Graff¹; Gordon C. Rausser¹; Arthur A. Small²

¹ University of California, Berkeley · ² Columbia University

We formulate and test a hypothesis for the dramatic restructuring that the plant breeding and seed industry has recently undergone: the reorganization can be explained in part by the desire to exploit complementarities between intellectual assets needed to create genetically modified organisms. This hypothesis is tested using data on agricultural biotechnology patents, notices for field tests of genetically modified organisms, and firm characteristics. The presence of complementarities is identified with a positive covariance in the unexplained variation of asset holdings. Results indicate that coordination of complementary assets has increased under the consolidation of the industry.

DOI

10.1162/003465303765299864

Volume

85 (2)

Pages

349-363

Language

en

Export

BibTeX

Sources

openalex crossref