Why Firms Trademark (or not): Evidence from the US Trademark Data

Previous studies have investigated the correlation between firms’ trademarking activity and innovation. However, there is a lack of formal investigation on which firms file for trademarks and the strategic reasoning behind their decision making process. In this paper we model firms’ trademarking activity as a discrete choice in an innovation setting to understand why firms file for trademarks. We use a new sample based on firms in the United...