DP6141 The Rules of Standard Setting Organizations: An Empirical Analysis

Author(s):	Benjamin Chiao, Josh Lerner, Jean Tirole
Publication Date:	February 2007
Keyword(s):	forum shopping, innovation, licensing, standardization
JEL(s):	L2, O3
Programme Areas:	Industrial Organization
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=6141

This paper empirically explores standard-setting organizations? policy choices. Consistent with Lerner-Tirole (2006), we find (a) a negative relationship between the extent to which an SSO is oriented to technology sponsors and the concession level required of sponsors and (b) a positive correlation between the sponsor-friendliness of the selected SSO and the quality of the standard. We also develop and test two extensions of the earlier model: the presence of provisions mandating royalty-free licensing is negatively associated with disclosure requirements, and the relationship between concessions and user friendliness is weaker when there is only a limited number of SSOs.