Commercializing science: Is there a university ‘brain drain’ from academic entrepreneurship?

Commercializing science: Is there a university ‘brain drain’ from academic entrepreneurship?

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Article ID: iaor20106310
Volume: 56
Issue: 9
Start Page Number: 1599
End Page Number: 1614
Publication Date: Sep 2010
Journal: Management Science
Authors: ,
Keywords: education
Abstract:

When academic researchers participate in commercialization using for-profit firms, there is a potentially costly trade-off–their time and effort are diverted away from academic knowledge production. This is a form of brain drain on the not-for-profit research sector that may reduce knowledge accumulation and adversely impact long-run economic growth. In this paper, we examine the economic significance of the brain drain phenomenon using scientist-level panel data. We identify life scientists who start or join for-profit firms using information from the Small Business Innovation Research program and analyze the research performance of these scientists relative to a control group of randomly selected research peers. Combining our statistical results with data on the number of university spin-offs in the United States from 1994 to 2004, we find the academic brain drain has a nontrivial impact on knowledge production in the not-for-profit research sector.

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