FCC Product Authorizations

This dataset provides information about products submitted to the U.S. Fedetal Communications Commission, web-scraped from its website (https://www.fcc.gov/oet/ea/fccid) and enhanced with PatentsView data. Further information available in code and forthcoming paper.

Files:

• fcc_products_analysis.csv.gz – the main data file
• analysis.ipynb – regression discontinuity design analysis, some descriptive statistics
• analysis.Rmd – difference in differences analysis, summary statistics, plots

Variables:

• 'fccid' – commonly used product IDs, but not unique and not used in our analysis
• 'app_id' – ID number of the FCC application, unique per row
• 'grantee_country' – unique applicant identifier
• 'country' – country of applicant
• 'application_date' – date of submission to the FCC, primary date variable
• 'years_to_treatment' – years to the transparency shock, 0 for the uptake period
• 'freq_output_new' – binary variable, 1 if product contains new combination of wireless frequencies
• 'recent_patent' – binary variable, 1 if firm patented in prior 3 years
• 'deregulated' – binary variable, 1 if product category has been deregulated
• 'internet' – binary variable, 1 if product contains wireless internet connectivity
• 'secrecy' – binary variable, 1 if FCC submission claimed long-term confidentiality
• 'treated' – binary variable, 0 in the pre-period, 1 in the post- period, NA in the uptake period
• 'class' – product class
• 'description' – product description
• 'has_exhibits' – binary variable, 1 if the submission was digitized and includes documentation in PDF
• 'survival_1y' – binary variable, 1 if the firm submitted at least one product {1, 3, 5} or more years after the application_date
• 'survival_3y'
• 'survival_5y'
• 'freq_output_self_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by the same firm (within 5 years, default)
• 'freq_output_early_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other firms (within 5 years, default)
• 'freq_output_3y_self_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by the same firm (within 3 years)
• 'freq_output_3y_early_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other firms (within 3 years)
• 'freq_output_7y_self_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by the same firm (within 7 years)
• 'freq_output_7y_early_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other firms (within 7 years)
• 'freq_output_inclass_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other firms in the same class
• 'freq_output_outclass_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other firms in a different class
• 'freq_output_class_incumbent_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other incumbent firms
• 'freq_output_class_entrant_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other class entrant firms 
  'freq_output_entrant_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other entrant firms
• 'freq_output_domestic_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by other domestic firms
• 'freq_output_foreign_wto_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by foreign firms from countries joining WTO prior to 1998
• 'freq_output_foreign_non_wto_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by foreign firms from countries not joining WTO prior to 1998
• 'freq_output_foreign_china_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by foreign firms from China
• 'freq_output_foreign_taiwan_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by foreign firms from Taiwan
• 'freq_output_foreign_non_wto_non_china_taiwan_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by foreign firms from countries not joining WTO prior to 1998, and excluding China and Taiwan
• 'freq_output_foreign_us_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by foreign firms from the U.S.
• 'freq_output_foreign_wto_non_us_apps' – count of future products with the same frequency combination by foreign firms from countries joining WTO prior to 1998, and excluding the U.S.