The increasing commercialization of university discoveries has initiated a controversy on the impacts for future scientific research. It has been argued that an increasing orientation towards commercialization may have a negative impact on more fundamental research efforts in science. Several...

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...

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...

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...