TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing the relative performance of university technology transfer in the US and UK
T2 - A stochastic distance function approach
AU - Siegel, Donald
AU - Wright, Mike
AU - Chapple, Wendy
AU - Lockett, Andy
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Gregory Graff, Catherine Morrison Paul, Matthias Staat, David Zilberman, two anonymous reviewers, and seminar participants at the January 2004 AEA meetings, the June 2004 North American productivity workshop at the University of Toronto, the 2005 second ZEW conference on the economics of innovation and patenting, the March 2007 USDA NC-1034 symposium at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California at Riverside for insightful comments and suggestions. The first author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation through the NBER project on industrial technology and productivity.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - University technology transfer offices (henceforth, TTOs) play a critical role in the diffusion of innovation and the development of new technology infrastructure. Studies of the relative efficiency of TTOs have been based on licensing output measures and data from a single country. In contrast, we present the first cross-country comparison of the relative performance of TTOs, based on stochastic multiple output distance functions. The additional dimension of output considered is the university's propensity to generate start-up companies, based on technologies developed at these institutions. We find that US universities are more efficient than UK universities and that the production process is characterized by either decreasing or constant returns to scale. Universities with a medical school and an incubator are closer to the frontier.
AB - University technology transfer offices (henceforth, TTOs) play a critical role in the diffusion of innovation and the development of new technology infrastructure. Studies of the relative efficiency of TTOs have been based on licensing output measures and data from a single country. In contrast, we present the first cross-country comparison of the relative performance of TTOs, based on stochastic multiple output distance functions. The additional dimension of output considered is the university's propensity to generate start-up companies, based on technologies developed at these institutions. We find that US universities are more efficient than UK universities and that the production process is characterized by either decreasing or constant returns to scale. Universities with a medical school and an incubator are closer to the frontier.
KW - Stochastic distance functions
KW - Technology licensing
KW - Technology transfer office
KW - University spin-offs (USO) patents
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U2 - 10.1080/10438590701785769
DO - 10.1080/10438590701785769
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:53549109423
SN - 1043-8599
VL - 17
SP - 717
EP - 729
JO - Economics of Innovation and New Technology
JF - Economics of Innovation and New Technology
IS - 7-8
ER -