J Econ Manage Strat. 2021;30:697–720. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jems | 697 Received: 18 March 2020 | Revised: 7 February 2021 | Accepted: 1 May 2021 DOI: 10.1111/jems.12430 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Buyers' role in innovation procurement: Evidence from US military R&D contracts Francesco Decarolis 1 | Gaétan de Rassenfosse 2 | Leonardo M. Giuffrida 3 | Elisabetta Iossa 4 | Vincenzo Mollisi 5 | Emilio Raiteri 6 | Giancarlo Spagnolo 7 1 IGIER, Department of Economics, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy 2 École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland 3 ZEW, Mannheim, Germany 4 GREEN‐Bocconi, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy 5 University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany 6 School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands 7 Stockholm School of Economics (SITE), EIEF, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy Correspondence Francesco Decarolis, Bocconi University, IGIER, Via Roentgen N. 1, Milano 20136, Italy. Email: [email protected] and [email protected] Funding information H2020 European Research Council, Grant/Award Number: ERC‐2015‐StG‐ 679217; Italian Ministry of Education, Grant/Award Number: 2017Y5PJ43 001 PRIN 2017; EPFL Fellows cofunded by Marie Sklodowska‐Curie, Grant/Award Number: 665667; University of Rome Tor Vergata ‐ Bando Doppia Cattedra, Grant/Award Number: 2014‐2016 Abstract This study provides the first quantification of buyers' role in the outcome of R&D procurement contracts. We combine together four data sources on US federal R&D contracts, follow‐on patented inventions, federal public work- force characteristics, and perception of their work environment. By exploiting the observability of deaths of federal employees, we find that managers' death events negatively affect innovation outcomes: a 1% increase in the share of relevant public officer deaths causes a decline of 32.3% of patents per contract, 20.5% patent citations per contract, and 34.3% patent claims per contract. These effects are driven by the deaths occurring in the 6 months before the contract is awarded, thereby indicating the relevance of the design and award stage relative to ex post contract monitoring. Lower levels of self‐reported within‐office cooperation also negatively impact R&D outcomes. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
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