Research, IP, and equities – Oh my!

A data analyst feels at odds without data. I’m glad I came to Mongolia to write, rather than as a data analyst.
Journalistic vacation aside, my primary career is, as a decision scientist, focusing on “pure” academic research. In the process, I “crunch” a lot of data – numbers and words. I’ve spent the last 18 years as a data analyst/programmer supporting research in health and mental health care, policy, business, economics, and finance. I’ve worked extensively with patenting data and other specialty business research databases such as those provided by the Center for Research in Security Prices and Compustat, as well as with using tools such as those for event studies (notably Eventus). All of these data sources are offered comprehensively through the Wharton Research Data Services (wrds-web.wharton.upenn.edu/wrds/about/WRDS FAQs.cfm) It wasn’t always that way – used to be a do-it-yourself each-analyst-for-him-or-herself deal. Believe me, the new way saves a lot of time and money in conducting research. By the way, the WRDS subscriber map shows none in Mongolia, but plenty in Asia.

Here in Mongolia, I went on a hunt for the essential ingredients to solid research in economics and finance one would ideally have on hand, and in English. These are (1) prior work, (2) patenting and trademarketing data, and (3) stock market, securities, and company financial data.

1. Prior published research

I searched EBSCOHost, the world’s foremost premium research database service, for peer-reviewed English language articles published in 2013 with the keyword “Mongolia” and got 630 “hits.” Seems high, but hold your horses: many were about health, agriculture, history, anthropology, literature, meteorology, and archeology. Sixty-five fell into the vague categories of “research” and “research article” and another 13 into “Mongolia.”

Only nine articles were specifically on “financial research” and six on “economic development” for a total of 15. Quite a few of these were miscategorized, such as “The Genus Cynomorium in China: An Ethnopharmacological and Phytochemical Review” and others overlapped with epidemiological and health studies. “Affordability of Water Supply in Mongolia: Empirical Lessons for Measuring Affordability” (DOI: 10.2166/wp.2012.192) was as close as the “hits” got to business. A majority of the rest related to China (for example, “Inner Mongolia”) or comparative studies of poverty and/or gender, and health-related issues. There were no authors with Mongolian names among the articles in the listing.

I repeated the same search using JSTOR; a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources; checking the boxes related to Business, Economics, Finance, Law, Marketing, Management & Organizational Behavior, Public Policy & Administration, and Political Science. I got 18 “hits” – none by Mongolian authors, numerous articles related to China or Russia, and some comparative studies in which Mongolia was not the primary focus, i.e. “Bribes and Ballots: The Impact of Corruption on Voter Turnout in Democracies,” “The Resource Curse Revisited: Governance and Natural Resources,” etc.

2. Patenting and trademarking data

Intellectual property (IP) and branding/trademarking are often overlooked by researchers, but they factor largely in the bigger picture. Their importance is underscored in a June 4th White House blog article by Gene Sperling entitled “Taking on Patent Trolls to Protect American Innovation.” It’s worth reading and can be found online at whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/06/04/taking-patent-trolls-protect-american-innovation. In short, IP is essential for economic development.

I conducted an English language patent search of Mongolian inventors or applications using a courtesy research subscription to leading patent search and valuation database provider Pantros IP, Inc. I was among the first users of Pantros IP’s advanced latent semantic/boolean search technology in 2006 when I was researching trends in nanotechnology and am authorized by Pantros IP to give complimentary demos of their patent searching and valuation web-based tools while here in UB. (Contact if.telepathy.fails@gmail.com.)
I carried out three separate searches, one each for patents applied for and/or granted by the World International Patenting Office (WIPO, wipo.int),the European Patenting Office (EP, epo.org), and the USPTO (uspto.gov) without date restrictions. The number of patents returned was dismal: only four, one, and 22, respectively; and some of these belonged to the same patent family and/or were related patents by the same inventors and/or applicants. Many were corporate. Only one Mongolian inventor predominated, Enkhbold Chuluun. Unsurprisingly, patents registered to Mongolian entities relate to mining technology or the agriculture and energy sectors (aside from mining).

English-language information about Mongolia’s IP protection can be found on the WIPO web site. Just enter “Mongolia” into the site’s search engine.

The lack of a Mongolian inventor or applicant patenting at the WIPO, EP, and USPTO is not an indication that Mongolians aren’t patenting. Mongolia does have an Intellectual Property Office and although an English-language link is provided for a Google search, the actual website (ipom.mn) is only in Mongolian. It even has a recently created Facebook page but, again, in Mongolian only. So it’s difficult to tell how much patenting is being done in-country, and by whom (Mongolians or foreign entities).

As for protection of foreign-owned IP in Mongolia, that’s a separate issue but clearly one that needs to be considered when valuing patents and their potential applications. A 2013 report by the US Embassy’s Economic and Commercial section entitled “2013 Mongolia Investment Climate Statement” comments on foreign intellectual property rights protection in Mongolia.

3. Stock market, securities, and company financial data

The Mongolian Stock Exchange has a website (mse.mn) with an English-language option, and it has company financials for each of the 276 companies listed. But these are not all in English, and despite reports of a recent USAID project to standardize in English these financials, I was unable to obtain further information about this project. The MSE website has separate lists of companies that have stopped trading or de-listed, those with Initial Public Offerings or tender offers, government held companies, etc. But it’s unclear how up-to-date this information might be. I couldn’t figure out a way to download historical securities data. Not to say that there might not be a way to do so. As for getting records of dividends, splits, acquisitions and mergers, as well as spin-offs, good luck. Unless you actually work at the exchange, know someone who does or have the moolah to subscribe to Bloomberg Professional, it’s unlikely an academic researcher – or any research analyst – is going to have data (let alone vetted data) to use to support hypotheses or to make well-informed decisions.

Conclusion

As a research data analyst, I’d have very little work to do here unless it was putting together a research data system. (And that’s not a bad idea!) It’s unclear to me how investment and development decisions will be made without solid, vetted data and research as a basis. Yes, there is some data available, but it seems geared at encouraging speculative investment based on only current data that’s not easily compared with competing investments, or with adjusted (for factors such as exchange rate, policy/legislation, weather) historical data.

Fund managers and investors might as well gaze into a crystal ball, or become flies on the wall. In short, investment in Mongolia, which was supposed to start out as fair and equitable, strikes me as elitist. I could not make the kind of investment decisions here that I would be able to make with my money in other markets. I encourage readers to look at what’s available from WRDS (http://wrds-web.wharton.upenn.edu/wrds/about/) and compare it to what’s available in Mongolia.

One part of the issue might be the salaries (if you can call them that) of those who would conduct pure research in economics, finance, IP, and policy; thereby, creating a knowledge base on which an economic future for Mongolia could be built. Maybe the data sources don’t exist because there’s nobody who would use them, and the WIPO/EP/USPTO patents don’t exist because there is no support for inventors to make their applications to these patenting offices and few guarantees that their inventions will be protected even if they do.

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