Why are inventors willing to take more risk in searching for new, more productive technology? This article examines coordination between inventors inventing and innovators in need for and using new patented technology, using an economic experiment.

The results indicate that the institutional arrangements matter more than enforcement in this learning process. In particular increased flexibility in demand side bidding yields higher willingness to search. This has implications on patent trade policy: Both the institutional and enforcement has to be considered in order to get a good selection process of what inventions to further invest in.

Read article for free here or download from Journal of the Knowledge Economy here.