TY  - JOUR
AU  - Darby,Michael R.
AU  - Zucker,Lynne G.
TI  - Grilichesian Breakthroughs: Inventions of Methods of Inventing and Firm Entry in Nanotechnology
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9825
PY  - 2003
Y2  - July 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9825
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9825.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael R. Darby
John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management
University of California, Los Angeles
110 Westwood Plaza, Box 951481
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
Tel: 310/825-4180
Fax: 310/454-2748
E-Mail: michael.r.darby@anderson.ucla.edu

Lynne G. Zucker
Departments of Sociology & Public Policy
UCLA
Box 951551
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551
Tel: 310/825-9155
Fax: 310/454-2748
E-Mail: zucker@ucla.edu
M1  - published as Michael L. Darby, Lynne G. Zucker. "Grilichesian Breakthroughs: Inventions of Methods of Inventing and Firm Entry in Nanotechnology," in Jacques Mairesse and Manuel Trajtenberg, editors, "Contributions in Memory of Zvi Griliches" Annales D'Économie et de Statistique, 79-80, July-December 2005 (2010)

AB  - Metamorphic progress (productivity growth much faster than average) is often driven by Grilichesian inventions of methods of inventing. For hybrid seed corn, the enabling invention was double-cross hybridization yielding highly productive seed corn that was not self-propagating. Biotechnology stemmed from recombinant DNA. Scanning probe microscopy is a key enabling discovery for nanotechnology. Nanotech publishing and patenting has grown phenomenally. Over half of nanotech authors are in the U.S. and 58 percent of those are in ten metropolitan areas. Like biotechnology, we find that firms enter nanotechnology where and when scientists are publishing breakthrough academic articles. A high average education level is also important, but the past level of venture-capital activity in a region is not. Breakthroughs in nanoscale science and engineering appear frequently to be transferred to industrial application with the active participation of discovering academic scientists. The need for top scientists' involvement provided important appropriability for biotechnology inventions, and a similar process appears to have started in nanotechnology.
ER  -