A growing body of evidence has documented the critical role that entrepreneurs play in fostering economic growth. But entrepreneurs can only be expected to take risks in ‘open settings’, where individuals and firms are free to contract with one another. In this important book,...

Commercializing knowledge involves transfer from discovering scientists to those who will develop it commercially. New codes and formulae describing discoveries develop slowly-with little incentive if value is low and many competing opportunities if high. Hence new knowledge remains naturally...

We examine the effects of university-based star scientists on three measures of performance for California biotechnology enterprises: the number of products in development, the number of products on the market, and changes in employment. The “star†concept which Zucker, Darby, and...

Breakthroughs with natural excludability are transferred to industry by top academic scientists (stars) working in or with firms. Movement to firms depends on scientists' quality, moving costs, and reservation wage. Scientists' quality, moving costs, trial frequency, interfering academic offers,...

In science-based industries, world-class scientists drive the most successful firms. These scientists are more likely to follow high-stakes, high-returns R&D strategies instead of more predictable incremental strategies. We develop an options pricing model in which the probability of stock-price...

During the formative years of biotechnology, 'star' bioscientists possessed intellectual capital of extraordinary scientific and pecuniary value. In America and Japan, 35 percent of star bioscientists became involved with firms in commercialising their discoveries (a crucial determinant of...