| For more than a century, both the rate and direction of technological change in American industry have depended on the scientific and technological research conducted in the nation's universities. Despite this long history, recent developments in university-industry research relationships---in particular the growth of patenting and licensing by universities over the past two decades---have attracted considerable attention from economists, and are regarded by many as major changes to the American system of innovation. These essays explore the economic causes and consequences of the recent rise in patenting and licensing by American research universities, and consider various econometric issues that arise in attempting to assess the social welfare implications of these changes.; Chapters Two and Three are historical, and provide a light on what has changed about universities, and what has not changed, over the past two decades. They histories show that universities have, throughout their history, done research of interest to industry. However, their attitudes towards patents has changed. For most of the century, universities feared involvement in patents; today this fear has been replaced by enthusiasm. This change in attitudes suggests that recent concerns about the determintal social welfare effects of increased university involvement in patenting and licensing should be taken seriously.; Chapter Four examines econometric issues that arise in using patent citation data to assess whether the growth of university involvement in patenting and licensing has been accompanied by a shift to applied research. It shows that recent work suggesting that there may indeed have been such a shift is not robust to using a longer stream of citation data. This has implications not only for thinking about the social welfare implications of increased university patenting and licensing, but also for thinking about patent citations as economic indicators.; Chapter Five examines the economic meaning of patent citations, using data on citations and license outcomes and revenues from two major universities. In particular, it examines whether citations can predict various measures of the value of university technologies. The results shows that citations are a good measure of the value of university patents, at least in an expected value sense. |
