Working Paper: NBER ID: w11497
Authors: Marie Thursby; Jerry Thursby; Swasti Guptamukherjee
Abstract: Whether financial returns to university licensing divert faculty from basic research is examined in a life cycle context. As in traditional life cycle models, faculty devote more time to research, which can be either basic or applied, early and more time to leisure as they age. Licensing has real effects by increasing the ratio of applied to basic effort and reducing leisure throughout the life cycle, but basic research need not suffer. When applied effort adds nothing to the stock of knowledge, licensing reduces research output, but if applied effort leads to publishable output as well as licenses, then research output and the stock of knowledge are higher with licensing than without. When tenure is added to the system, licensing has a positive effect on research output except when the incentives to license are very high.
Keywords: licensing; academic research; life cycle; faculty behavior
JEL Codes: D9; J2; O3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| licensing (D45) | ratio of applied to basic research effort (I23) |
| licensing (D45) | reduced leisure time (J22) |
| licensing (D45) | total research effort (O32) |
| applied research (C90) | overall research output (O47) |
| licensing (D45) | overall research output (O47) |
| high licensing incentives under tenure system (D45) | positive effects on research output (O36) |