Companies that start using 3D printers file way more patents, but honestly, the stuff they're inventing is kind of junk compared to the old way.
March 27, 2026
Original Paper
Does Additive Manufacturing Make Firms More Innovative? Evidence on Innovation Quantity and Quality
SSRN · 6471156
The Takeaway
3D printing reduces the cost of experimentation, leading companies to churn out more ideas, but this 'easy' innovation often lacks the breakthrough potential of traditional R&D. It reveals a fundamental trade-off where lowering the cost of creation can inadvertently dilute the value of the output.
From the abstract
Despite the increasing diffusion of additive manufacturing (AM), little is known about its impact on a firm’s innovation outcomes. This study adopts an exploration–exploitation perspective to examine how AM implementation affects innovation quantity and quality, two important types of innovation outcomes. Using a matched sample of 129 US firms that implemented AM and 129 comparable firms without such implementation over the period of 2011–2019, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to e