The Survey of Industrial R&D - Patent Database Link Project

Abstract

This paper details the construction of a firm-year panel dataset combining the NBER Patent Dataset with the Survey of Industrial R&D conducted by the Census Bureau and National Science Foundation. The dataset constitutes a platform that offers an unprecedented view of the R&D-to-patenting innovation process and a close analysis of the strengths and limitations of the R&D survey. The files are linked through a name-matching algorithm customized for uniting the firm names to which patents are assigned with the firm names in Census Bureau's SSEL business registry. Through the Census Bureau's file structure, R&D can be linked to the operating performances of each firm's establishments, further facilitating innovation-to-productivity studies.