Patent Wavier and Motivations for R&D

Last registered on January 06, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Patent Wavier and Motivations for R&D
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010557
Initial registration date
December 01, 2022

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 14, 2022, 2:07 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
January 06, 2023, 1:23 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Kindai University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Yale University
PI Affiliation
Temple University
PI Affiliation
University of Bologna
PI Affiliation
University of Bologna
PI Affiliation
University of Tokyo

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2022-12-01
End date
2022-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This document describes the design and analysis plan for an online RCT experiment (N = 651) to be held between December the 1st, 2022 and December the 31rd, 2022, using a list of university-based start-up firms compiled by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), Japan.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Yamada, Katsunori et al. 2023. "Patent Wavier and Motivations for R&D." AEA RCT Registry. January 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10557-1.3
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2022-12-01
Intervention End Date
2022-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We have two outcome variables;
(i) Subjective motivations for research activities going forward (1-7)
(ii) Time allocations for research activities going forward (1-100)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This study investigates the effects of information manipulations using unique samples of researchers.
Experimental Design Details
Our online survey experiment is designed to investigate the causal effect between the possibility of a patent wavier on their motivations and time allocations for R&D activities among Japanese researchers.

In our RCT experiment, there is a treatment group and a control group. For the treatment group, we provide information about a real news article on the waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines.

For the control group, we provide information about newly installed regulations on corporate tax payments against large multi national companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. Global agreement on the tax deal was achieved at the G20 meeting in Rome, October 2021. The new tax deal should have significant influences on decision making for large multi national businesses. However, the news should not affect small firms such as those in our METI list, as they are domestic, start-up firms. As such, the news about the new tax deal should make a perfect control condition in our RCT experiment.

In our survey experiment, we first ask 13 questions regarding the baseline information on the start-up firms. Randomized information manipulation follows the baseline questions. Finally, we ask four questions after information provisions. Two of them constitutes our outcome variables: motivations and expected time allocation for the future research activities.
Randomization Method
Stratified sampling done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
We randomly assign our subjects into two groups. We conduct stratified sampling to make sure that the sample distributions regarding industry, year of establishment, and regions are balanced across the groups.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
The total number of start-up firms listed in the METI list is 777. With our initial screenings, we found that some of them do not contain any contact information. We checked recent activities and contact information of those firms online, and found no evidence of businesses being run recently. There are 126 such firms, which we dropped from our study. As such, we are left with 651 firms.
Sample size: planned number of observations
We expect that the response rate will be low. Hence, we will analyze data with Bayesian estimations.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
325 firms by each treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
As we stated above, we will conduct Bayesian estimations due to the small number of observations.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Research Ethics Review Board at Kindai University
IRB Approval Date
2022-10-25
IRB Approval Number
ZAI2206
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials