Mega Firms and New Technological Trajectories in the U.S.

We provide evidence that mega firms have played an increasingly important role in shaping new technological trajectories in recent years. While the share of novel patents—defined as patents introducing new combinations of technological components—produced by mega firms declined until around 2000, it has rebounded sharply since then. Furthermore, we find that the technological impact and knowledge diffusion of novel patents by mega firms have grown relative to those by non-mega firms after 2001. We also explore potential drivers of this trend, presenting evidence that the rise in novel patenting by mega firms is tied to their disproportionate increase in cash holdings and the expansion of their technological scope. Our findings highlight an overlooked positive role of mega firms in the economywide innovation process.