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Tim Bresnahan

@timobres.bsky.social

6.3K followers 2.3K following 538 posts

Economist, old guy. Interested in competition and innovation econs. tbres.su.domains

Posts Replies Media

Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The vandals have been located.

Picture of a 1974 breakfast with diners in formal wear served by waiters beside the reflecting pool.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Nicole Hollander, whose Sylvia comic was for 33 years daily proof that feminism could be very funny, has died. A great loss!

Sylvia comic strip in which Sylvia argues with her TV about women's low wages.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

New Working Paper! Lucky to work with Shane Greenstein @shanegreenstein.bsky.social and Pai-Ling Yin on "New Economic Forces Behind the Value Distribution of Innovation." Abstract and link follow. lnkd.in/ew6UHk3v

Abstract of "New Economic Forces Behind the Value Distribution of Innovation." Advances in a general-purpose technology (GPT) enable many firms to invent complementary inventions, or co-inventions, making the GPT more valuable. This study examines the empirical implications of a straightforward model in which firms choose either incremental or novel co-invention. Incremental co-inventors aspire to small gains at low costs and with less uncertainty. Novel co-inventors introduce new products or services with the potential for large returns, but do so at high costs and with uncertain outcomes. Similar firms investing in incremental co-invention will create value proportional to their existing business, a benchmark we illustrate with the experiences at local radio and newspapers. The study then examines the value of co-inventions for the World Wide Web and mobile ecosystems, focusing on success in 2013, using data from many sources. This data supports analysis comparing the incremental and novel regimes. The latter should display a distinctly different up! per tail of the distribution of returns. We show that the value distributions for incremental and novel co-invention are far apart. Incremental co-invention is more widely distributed across regions, industries, and firms. Success from novel co-invention is rare, challenging, and the source of the largest value. In the aggregate, novel co-invention creates the most value, so the overall value distribution remains concentrated in a few industries, regions, and firms.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Mike Scherer, a leader in industrial organization economics, in the study of innovation, and in many other topics since the 1960s, has died at 92. Strikingly eclectic, he wrote (inter alia) about weapons procurement and the commercialization of classical music. More than anything /1

Cover of "Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance"

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Literary cat predicts Pulitzer.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

Zvi Griliches!

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I just added my BlueSky contact to my RePEc profile. Easy to do, login, go to contacts page (see pic) and fill it in. #EconSky Thanks to @czimm-economist.bsky.social For civilians, RePEc is a valuable sharing site for research papers in economics.

Picture of Tim's RePEc contacts page with his BlueSky handle added.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

The NBER Innovation Information Initiative will award five or more fellowships of $1500 each to graduate students in economics, innovation, entrepreneurship, or related fields. Applications open at link below. Full deets in picture. "Outsiders" encouraged to apply.

Details of application process from NBER email, including oppty to contact organizers to contact Bhaven Sampat (bhaven.sampat@asu.edu) and/or Agnes Cameron (agnescam@mit.edu)

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 29/10/2024

NBER Fellowship applications list -- Graduate students, postdocs, etc. Need not be NBER affiliate to apply. Some deadlines looming. #EconSky

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

Submit a paper about new data or methods re: innovation, science, entrepreneurship etc. Mtg Dec 6/7 in Cambridge. Non-NBER affiliates with assets encouraged to apply. DM and I will forward you full email. www.nber.org/confsubmit/b...

The next meeting of the NBER Innovation Information Initiative (I3) Technical Working Group will be held on December 6 and 7, 2024 immediately following the NBER Place-Based Policies and Entrepeneurship meeting.
The aim of I3 is to support the production and dissemination of open data for research on innovation, science, entrepreneurship, and related fields. The Technical Working Group will feature "deep dive"
presentations of novel datasets or research tools (including efforts in progress that would benefit from community feedback or
collaboration) that are or will be made openly available.
Please submit either (a) an extended abstract of five pages or less describing the new dataset or tool you propose to present, its potential value to the research community, and your plans for public dissemination, or (b) a research paper that fully describes data construction (or has a comprehensive data
appendix) along with a short cover note describing the value of the dataset (or tool) to the

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 06/09/2024

NBER is coming to BlueSky. AEA, SIEPR, others soon too. Write your friendly AEA ad hoc Social Media Committee about other content you would like to see and we will lobby for it. social_media_committee@aeapubs.org

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 04/09/2024

Delighted to welcome @siepr.bsky.social! Hoping to see many more important economics institutions here.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 03/09/2024

Submit to NBER winter IO Meeting (deets in pic)

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

NBER WP weekly announcement will likely come to #EconSky soon. For now, my limited snipping skills

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

Two fawns across the street (mama nearby, eating trees). Have a happy labor day, everyone.

Two fawns across the street from my house.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 31/08/2024

Updating in light of events.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 24/08/2024

My cat, Roscoe.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 16/08/2024

Post a non-religious picture you think of as holy.

Pension building in Washington DC, dedicated to those killed or wounded in military service and to their families.

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Tim Bresnahan @timobres.bsky.social · 21/02/2024

Basic training in Econ for budding journalists, in 4 easy lessons. Freshman: explain why the headline and the graph caption are error. Sophomore: The NYT fixed those overnight. Find an error in the fix. Junior: Explain why the premise of the story is silly. Senior: Sorry, no 4th year errors.

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