We use an exogenous change in German Federal law to examine how entrepreneurial support and the ownership of patent rights influence academic entrepreneurship. In 2002, the German Federal Government enacted a major reform called Knowledge Creates Markets that set up new infrastructure to...

This paper examines how university research alliances and other cooperative links with universities contribute to startup employment growth. We argue that “scientific absorptive capacity” at the startup is critical for reaping the benefits from university research alliances, but not...

We examine how the ownership of intellectual property rights influences patenting of university-discovered inventions. In 2002, Germany transferred patent rights from faculty members to their universities. To identify the effect on the volume of patenting, we exploit the researcher-level...

We estimate the effect of R&D spillovers on sales realized by products new to the firm (imitation) and new to the market (innovation). It turns out that spillovers from rivals lead to more imitation, while inputs from customers and research institutions enhance original innovation.