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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2006.05.016 Byline: Marie Thursby (a), Jerry Thursby (b), Swasti Gupta-Mukherjee (c) Keywords: No licensing versus licensing; Tenure system; Base model; Life cycle model Abstract: Do financial returns to licensing divert faculty from basic research? In a life cycle model in which faculty can conduct basic and/or applied research (the latter can be licensed) licensing increases applied relative to basic effort. However, leisure falls so basic research need not suffer. If applied effort also leads to publishable output, then research output and stock of knowledge are higher with licensing than without. In a tenure system licensing has a positive effect on research output unless license incentives are high. Overall results suggest a positive impact of tenure on research output over the life cycle. Author Affiliation: (a) College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology and NBER, United States (b) Department of Economics, Emory University, United States (c) College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States Article History: Received 16 June 2005; Accepted 19 May 2006

Understanding the nature of the involvement of faculty in university licensing is important for understanding how technology is transferred through licensing as well as more controversial issues, such as the need for university licensing. Using data from a survey of firms that actively license in from universities, the authors explore the importance of faculty in the licensing and development of inventions, as well as how and why they are used and how the use of faculty relates to characteristics of firms. In particular, the authors find that the use of faculty through sponsored research in lieu of a license is closely related to the amount of basic research conducted by firms, whereas the use of faculty within the terms of a license is related to the prevalence of personal contacts between industry research and development researchers and university faculty. (JEL J44, 031), 1. INTRODUCTION Are faculty critical to university--industry licensing? The short answer is, of course, yes because without faculty there would be no university inventions to license. To stop here, however, [...]

This article analyzes how institutional differences affect university entrepreneurship. We focus on ownership of faculty inventions, and compare two institutional regimes, the United States and Sweden. In the United States, the Bayh–Dole Act gives universities the right to own inventions from publicly funded research, whereas in Sweden, the professor privilege gives the university faculty this right. We develop a theoretical model and examine the effects of institutional differences on modes of commercialization, entrepreneurship or licenses to established firms, as well as on probabilities of successful commercialization. We find that the US system is less conducive to entrepreneurship than the Swedish system if established firms have some advantage over faculty startups, and that, on average, the probability of successful commercialization is somewhat higher in the United States. We also use the model to perform four policy experiments, as suggested by recent policy debates in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]