Research
Working Papers
Why do firms produce scientific research that becomes available to the public, including their rivals? An important but hitherto ignored benefit is that it can influence the direction of research conducted by external scientists in ways that benefit the focal firm. I show that external scientists often build upon a firm's publications, producing follow-on findings, which the firm then incorporates into its own future innovations. To account for the unobserved quality of the science involved, I develop a new instrumental variable that relies on the quasi-random assignment of accepted manuscripts to specific issues of scientific journals. Some publications attract more academic attention simply because they appear alongside contributions from prominent authors in the same journal issue. Using data on scientific publications by public firms between 1990 and 2012, I find that follow-on research not only drives firms' subsequent investments in science but also improves their patenting outcomes. The benefits are more pronounced for technological leaders, firms with complementary assets, and those operating in emerging research fields. In addition to being a valuable input into the firm's innovations, follow-on research also helps validate the quality of the firm's internal science, especially when there is greater uncertainty. My findings contribute to the understanding of why firms participate in public science.
@misc{Shvadron2024Bread,
title={Bread Upon the Waters: Corporate Science and the Use of Follow-on Public Research},
author={Dror Shvadron},
year={2024},
eprint={2512.04400},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={econ.GN},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04400}
}
@unpublished{ShvadronSuh2026Radio,
title = {Radio Silence: Scientific Disclosure and Appropriation at RCA Labs},
author = {Dror Shvadron and Jungkyu Suh},
year = {2026},
}
@misc{ShvadronEtAl2025Migration,
title={A Quarter of US-Trained Scientists Eventually Leave. Is the US Giving Away Its Edge?},
author={Dror Shvadron and Hansen Zhang and Lee Fleming and Daniel P. Gross},
year={2025},
eprint={2512.11146},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={econ.GN},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.11146}
}
Using newly-collected data on the near-population of U.S. STEM PhD graduates since 1950, we examine who funds PhD training, how many graduates are trained in areas of strategic national importance, and the effects of public investment in PhD training on the scientific workforce. The U.S. federal government is by far the largest source of financial and in-kind support for STEM PhD training in America. We identify universities and fields where PhD training has a higher or lower intensity of government, industry, or philanthropic support, and the organizations and universities that fund and train the most PhDs in critical technology areas such as AI, quantum information technology, and biotechnology. Leveraging variation in government support across agencies and over time, we provide evidence suggesting that increasing government-funded PhD trainees increases PhD production roughly one-for-one. To support further research, we provide public datasets at multiple levels of aggregation, reporting PhD graduates by (i) critical technology area and (ii) source of support.
@unpublished{ShvadronEtAl2025PhDFunding,
title = {Funding the U.S. Scientific Training Ecosystem: New Data, Methods, and Evidence},
author = {Dror Shvadron and Hansen Zhang and Lee Fleming and Daniel P. Gross},
year = {2025},
url = {https://www.nber.org/papers/w33944},
}
Journal Publications
This paper examines how new entrants influenced content strategies in the U.S. online political news business from 2014 to 2021. Using a novel measure of article opinionation that captures the extent to which an article displays editorializing and persuasive language, we provide correlational evidence that new entrants produce articles that are more opinionated than those of incumbents, even when reporting on the same event. We then show that there is an economic rationale for this content strategy: opinionated articles receive more engagement on Twitter, and this engagement translates to increased webpage visits, crucial for advertising revenue. Consistent with these incentives, we provide evidence that news providers increase the average opinion level in their articles in response to competition and advertiser pressure. These shifts are accompanied by a possibly unintended consequence: opinionated content is associated with greater anger and hate speech in social media engagement.
@unpublished{ChatterjiEtAl2024Opinion,
title = {Opinion Trumps Fact: Entrepreneurship and Competition in Political News},
author = {Aaron Chatterji and Sharique Hasan and William D. Miles and Dror Shvadron},
year = {2024},
}
We estimate the effect of patent protection on follow-on investments in corporate scientific research. We exploit a new method for identifying an exogenous reduction in the protection a granted patent provides. Using data on public, research-active firms between 1990 and 2015, we find that firms respond to a decrease in patent protection by reducing follow-on research, as measured by a drop in internal citations to an associated scientific article. We study this effect across firms with varying commercialization capabilities and across varying thickness levels of markets for technology. We find that the effect is stronger in technologies where patents are traded less frequently. Our findings are consistent with a stylized model whereby patent protection is a strategic substitute for commercialization capability. Our results imply that stronger patents encourage follow-on research, but also shift the locus of research from big firms toward smaller firms and startups (JEL D22, O31, O32, O34).
@article{AroraEtAl2023Patent,
author = {Ashish Arora and Sharon Belenzon and Matt Marx and Dror Shvadron},
title = {When does patent protection spur cumulative research within firms?},
journal = {The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization},
volume = {40},
number = {3},
pages = {694-728},
year = {2023},
month = {06},
doi = {10.1093/jleo/ewad006},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewad006},
eprint = {https://academic.oup.com/jleo/article-pdf/40/3/694/60699137/ewad006.pdf},
}
Book Chapters
Large-scale open datasets have transformed empirical research on science and innovation, but working with these data presents persistent challenges: computational barriers, provider dependence, reproducibility difficulties, transparency gaps, and resource inequality across institutions. We describe the i3 BigQuery Workspace, a shared cloud platform that hosts curated datasets (including OpenAlex, PatentsView, and community-contributed resources like Reliance on Science) and enables researchers to query terabyte-scale data in seconds, integrates multiple sources, and implements advanced tools like machine learning at scale. We document examples of research enabled by this infrastructure and discuss how shared data resources can improve research efficiency and expand the scope of feasible research in the economics of science and innovation.
@incollection{MarxShvadron2025BigQuery,
title = {The i3 BigQuery Workspace: Shared Infrastructure for Open Science},
author = {Matt Marx and Dror Shvadron},
year = {2025},
booktitle = {The Economics of Science: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead},
editor = {Megan MacGarvie and Reinhilde Veugelers},
publisher = {University of Chicago Press},
url = {https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/economics-science-taking-stock-and-looking-ahead/i3-bigquery-workspace-shared-infrastructure-open-science},
}
Work in Progress
Back to the Future: Are Big Firms Regaining their Scientific and Technological Dominance? Evidence from DISCERN 2.0 with Ashish Arora, Sharon Belenzon, Larisa Cioaca and Lia Sheer
R&D Alliances with Evgenii Fadeev
Pre-PhD Policy Publications
Israeli Agri-tech and Indian Agricultural Challenges: Recommendations for an Updated Governmental Policy, Milken Innovation Center, 2018.
Regional Population Scenarios for the State of Israel 2015-2040 with Shmuel Abramzon, Prime Minister Office of Israel, 2017.