Working Paper: NBER ID: w11917
Authors: Pierre Azoulay; Waverly Ding; Toby Stuart
Abstract: We examine the influence of faculty patenting activity on the rate, quality, and content of public research outputs in a panel dataset spanning the careers of 3,862 academic life scientists. Using inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTW) to account for the dynamics of self-selection into patenting, we find that patenting has a positive effect on the rate of publication of journal articles, but no effect on the quality of these publications. Using several measures of the "patentability" of the content of research papers, we also find that patenters may be shifting their research focus to questions of commercial interest. We conclude that the often-voiced concern that patenting in academe has a nefarious effect on public research output is, at least in its simplest form, misplaced.
Keywords: academic patenting; public research; research output
JEL Codes: O31; O32; O34
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| patenting (O34) | rate of publication of journal articles (A14) |
| flow of scientists' patents (O36) | subsequent publication rates (A14) |
| stock of scientists' patents (O34) | subsequent publication rates (A14) |
| patenting (O34) | quality of publications (L15) |
| patenting (O34) | research content towards commercially relevant questions (O36) |
| patenting (O34) | co-authoring with industry researchers (O36) |
| patenting (O34) | publishing in journals with a higher proportion of corporate-affiliated authors (M14) |