Entrepreneurship involves innovation and uncertainty. We outline a theory of entrepreneurship, which highlights the importance of social networks in promoting innovation and reducing uncertainty. Our findings suggest that this “social” aspect of entrepreneurship increases the probability of...

This paper presents a systematic analysis of the net economic benefits associated with the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. We offer a derivation of producer and consumer surplus to estimate economic benefits. Fundamental to the implementation of these models is a specific...

We investigate the impacts of the U.S. publicly-funded Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program’s funding on the overall employment growth of SBIR-award recipient firms. This paper is motivated by the U.S. Congress’ continued emphasis of employment growth during its deliberations on...

Our descriptive analysis of a random sample of businesses that received Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awards shows that female-owned businesses are disadvantaged, compared to male-owned businesses, in their ability to attract alternative investment funding to...

In this paper we focus on technology that resulted from R&D projects funded by U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II awards. We ask: Is there evidence that strategic commercial agreements allow foreign firms to exploit the technologies developed through the SBIR program and...

The role of gender in entrepreneurship has been thoroughly investigated. However, less is known about gender differences in access to private investment when attempting to develop a new technology. In this paper we use data collected by the National Research Council of the National Academies to...

The U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Division of Policy Research and Analysis (PRA) supported academic research related to, among many other things, measurement of the returns to private and public R&D, during the early 1980s. The findings from this body of research became a...

In the United States, as in most industrialized nations, aggregate technological advancement declined during the 1970s and early 1980s. The U.S. Congress was quick to respond to this down turn by passing a number of technology- and innovation-related initiatives, one of which was the National...