public research and industrial innovations in germany this paper deals with the effects of publicly funded research at universities polytechnics and federal research labs on industrial innovations in germany we discuss the characteristics of companies that benefit from the findings of public research institutions in questioning 2 300 companies we found that less than one tenth of product or process innovating firms introduced innovations between 1993 and 1995 that would not have been developed without public research these new products amount to approximately 5 percent of all new product sales regressions show that firms own r d support the ability to absorb the findings of public research and turn them into innovations contrary to the widely held opinion that proximity to public research institutions does promote collaboration between firms and public research and increase the amount of received knowledge spillovers we found no higher probability of publicly supported innovations for firms in germany that are located near universities or polytechnics

airline market power and intertemporal price dispersion this paper analyzes the empirical relationship between market structure and price dispersion in the airline markets connecting the u k and the republic of ireland price dispersion is measured by the gini coefficient calculated using fares posted on the internet at specific days before takeoff we control for passengers heterogeneity in their purpose of travel as well as for such peak periods as christmas and easter our finding of a negative correlation between competition and price dispersion suggests that competition is likely to hinder the airlines ability to price discriminate although this effect appears to be lessened in peak periods

are knowledge spillovers driving the convergence of productivity among firms this study evaluates the impact of knowledge spillovers on the convergence of productivity among firms with the use of patent citation data knowledge spillovers are decomposed into intra and inter industry spillovers and internal knowledge flows the findings from this study suggest that each firm is converging to its own steady state productivity growth rate which is conditional on the firm s r d efforts and the intensity of intra industry spillovers it receives moreover if technology followers and leaders invest equally in r d activities the followers will eventually catch up with the leaders because the former tend to be the ones who receive knowledge spillovers from the latter

does competition reduce price dispersion new evidence from the airline industry we analyze the effects of competition on price dispersion in the airline industry using panel data from 1993 q1 through 2006 q3 competition has a negative effect on price dispersion in line with the textbook treatment of price discrimination this effect is pronounced for routes with consumers characterized by relatively heterogeneous elasticities of demand on routes with a homogeneous customer base the effects of competition on price dispersion are smaller our results contrast with those of borenstein and rose who found that price dispersion increases with competition we reconcile the different results by showing that the cross sectional estimator suffers from omitted variable bias

price discrimination in the airline market the effect of market concentration we test the hypothesis that price discrimination increases with competition in the airline market using a large cross section of tickets offered by several carriers on various routes we approximate price discrimination with marginal implicit prices of ticket restrictions that carriers typically use to price discriminate saturday night stayover re quirements and advanced purchase discounts we find that the restrictions are associated with lower airfares but that the discounts are smaller on routes with higher market concentration the results suggest that price dispersion attributed to ticket restrictions increases as markets becomemore competitive

price discrimination in cournot competition abstract we examine the average equilibrium price when quantity setting oligopolies price discriminate it is known that for the price discrimination extension of cournot competition the average price is independent of the extent of price discrimination whenever the demand is linear we show that this result holds under a larger class of demand functions

how effective are fiscal incentives for r d a review of the evidence this paper surveys the econometric evidence on the effectiveness of fiscal incentives for r d we describe the effects of tax systems in oecd countries on the user cost of r d the current position changes over time and across different firms in different countries we describe and criticize the methodologies used to evaluate the effect of the tax system on

academic research and industrial innovation the purpose of this study is to estimate the extent to which technological innovations in various industries have been based on recent academic research and the time lags between the investment in recent academic research projects and the industrial utilization of their findings because no attempt to my knowledge has been made to estimate the social rate of return from academic research we also make some rough and tentative estimates of this sort while the results are subject to many limitations discussed below they should be of interest to public policy makers concerned with science and technology as well as to

r d and internal finance a panel study of small firms in high tech industries since joseph schumpeter economists have argued that internal finance should be an important determinant of r d expenditures yet almost without exception previous empirical studies have not found evidence of such a relation using newly available data the authors investigate this puzzle with a panel of 179 small firms in high tech industries under each estimation strategy they employ the authors find an economically large and statistically significant relationship between r d investment and internal finance their results are consistent with the view that because of capital market imperfections the flow of internal finance is the principal determinant of the rate at which small high tech firms acquire technology through r d copyright 1994 by mit press

dynamic competition with random demand and costless search a theory of price posting this paper studies a dynamic model of perfectly competitive price posting under demand uncertainty firms must produce output in advance after observing aggregate sales in prior periods firms post prices for their unsold output in each period the demand of a new batch of consumers is randomly activated existing customers who have not yet bought and then new customers arrive at the market in random order observe the posted prices and either purchase at the lowest available price or delay their purchase decision we construct a sequential equilibrium in which the output produced and its allocation across consumers is efficient thus consumers endogenously sort themselves efficiently with the highest valuations purchasing first transaction prices in each period rise continuously as firms become more optimistic about demand followed by a market correction by the last period prices are market clearing

the relative effectiveness of patents and secrecy for appropriation abstract changes in patent law global competition and the rise of several new technologies suggest that patents could be of greater value than secrecy for many innovative firms particularly small firms that are unable to use market power or other factors to appropriate their investments in innovation data from the 1993 european community innovation survey cis for up to 2849 r d performing firms is analysed to determine the relative importance of secrecy vs patents this particular combination of appropriation methods is interesting because secrecy can act as a mutually exclusive alternative to patents the results show that a higher percentage of firms in all size classes rate secrecy as more valuable than patents however ordered logit regressions show that the probability that a firm rates secrecy as more valuable than patents declines with an increase in firm size for product innovations while there is no relationship for process innovations the firm s r d intensity has no effect on the relative value of secrecy vs patents there is weak evidence to show that participation in cooperative r d increases the value of patents over secrecy for product innovations the results are relevant to ongoing debates over changes to the patent system and the need for policies to encourage small firms to patent more

institutions supporting technical advance in industry elsewhere 1982 economists beliefs that modern capitalism is a fine innovation generating machine have no intellectual grounding in contemporary neoclassical theory the twin theorems take technologies as given the apparent effectiveness of capitalism in this arena must reside in characteristics and mechanisms other than those featured in the microeconomic theory textbooks in our book we attempt to analyze these it also is true that the capitalist engine is a much more complicated one than many economists seem to think i presently am

oligopoly price discrimination with many prices abstract the model of price discrimination in cournot nash oligopoly is extended to the case of many prices analogous to 1st degree monopoly price discrimination in the limit all viable customers are served but the price charged the keenest customers is well below the highest price charged by a monopoly

firm foundations and the role of financing constraints improving the economic conditions for small and medium sized firms as well as start ups is high on the agenda of policy makers in this paper we discuss some policy options for fostering the creation of new enterprises the discussion focuses on measures which aim at helping start ups to overcome liquidity constraints in order to provide the background for this discussion the paper provides some new empirical results on the determinants of firm foundations as well as some stylised facts on the occurence of liquidity constraints in west germany we analyse the regional distribution of start up intensity and offer several hypotheses to explain this distribution to a large extent the regional distribution of start ups can be explained by the existing industry structure regional human capital as well as the regional public traffic infrastructure moreover we show that liquidity constraints occur more often in small and young firms

a transaction costs analysis of innovations in the organization of pharmaceutical r d abstract this paper uses transaction costs economics to analyze the increasing importance of vertical disintegration of r d by large pharmaceutical and chemical firms first it discusses three characteristics of the research based pharmaceutical industry then it shows that market failures related to long term joint venture r d contracts between firms and university laboratories are less significant than appears at first and may account for their striking increase over the past fifteen years

is the effect of competition on price dispersion nonmonotonic evidence from the u s airline industry we investigate the effect of competition on price dispersion in the airline industry using panel data from 1993 to 2008 we find a nonmonotonic effect of competition on price dispersion an increase in competition is associated with greater price dispersion in concentrated markets but with less price dispersion in competitive markets an inverse u relationship our empirical findings are consistent with an oligopolistic second degree price discrimination model and encompass contradictory findings in the literature

dynamic pricing advance sales and aggregate demand learning in airlines this paper uses a unique u s airlines panel data set to empirically study the dynamic pricing of inventories with uncertain demand over a finite horizon i estimate a dynamic pricing equation and a dynamic demand equation that jointly characterize the adjustment process between prices and sales as the flight date nears i find that the price increases as the inventory decreases and decreases as there is less time to sell consistent with aggregate demand learning and price adjustment demand shocks have a positive and much larger effect on prices than the positive effect of anticipated sales

competition and price dispersion in the airline markets we use two ticket level data sets on one way domestic flights for the us airlines to examine the potentially nonlinear relationship between price dispersion and three forms of competition inter firm inter flight and frequency competitions the linear relationship is rejected at any conventional significance levels in particular there is an s shaped relationship between market concentration and price dispersion this can be a reason for the mixed results in the literature roughly speaking the inter flight and frequency competitions have opposite effects on price dispersion finally in general the size of aircraft has a positive effect on price however for very large aircraft the relationship becomes negative

technology transfer under asymmetric information licensing contracts for newly patented innovations are observed to vary along several dimensions including the form and size of the payment to the inventor fixedfee versus some output based royalty the degree of exclusivity and the division of rents in this article we show that theform of the contract can be explained by two problems in technology exchange the superiority of a licensor s precontractual information about the economic value of the innovation and thefact that sharing this information with the licensee mayfacilitate imitation we show that a licensor signals her technology type with an output based payment or royalty and may leave some of the rents with the licensee conditions under which exclusive license contracts linear and nonlinear and nonexclusive linear contracts are used to transfer technology are identified

universities as engines of r d based economic growth they think they can two issues raised by increased participation of universities in equity arrangements designed to commercialize faculty research are addressed a the effects that an increased emphasis on patenting faculty research and on enhancing the commercial value of these patents has on the characteristics of academic research net revenue streams and existing channels through which academic research enters the market and b processes of institutional change and imitation whereby changes in the policies of elite research universities exert competitive and emulative pressures on other institutions increased efforts by universities to foster the commercialization of technological innovations erodes the singular position of institutions of higher learning in the united states based on past performance there is little reason to expect that a substantial reallocation of faculty effort towards commercially oriented r d will generate appreciable net revenues for other than a select number of universities these ventures also serve to shift academic researchers from the social roles in which they are most efficient as suppliers of a collective goodscientific and technological knowledge just as very few men are both capable business managers and ingenious inventors so few are at the same time ingenious inventors and exalted altruists some twenty years ago a university professor devised a method for measuring with accuracy the content of butterfat in milk the device if patented would doubtless have yielded him a very handsome income the inventor gave it freely to the public saying modestly that to do so was but part of his duty as a servant of the people and it has come into use the world over we call his conduct noble but our very recognition of its nobility is an admission of its rarity f w taussig inventors and money makers 1915 58

optimal diversity increasing returns versus recombinant innovation abstract choices regarding diversity play an important role in economics and innovation management but often remain implicit once made explicit the objectives of efficiency and diversity are usually posed as in conflict as efficiency relates positively and diversity negatively to various increasing returns to scale in markets such a perspective however neglects the benefits of diversity in terms of realizing system improvements through recombinant innovation or spillovers the latter implies a contribution of diversity to long term efficiency dominant economic approaches that address diversity such as option value and real options theories regard benefits of diversity as exogenous this paper proposes a simple model of variable endogenous diversity to analyse the optimal balance between increasing returns to scale and recombinant innovation it is discussed under which conditions one of four solutions is optimal complete specialization regardless of which option complete specialization in one specific option symmetric diversity perfect balance and asymmetric diversity the results give rise to a number of policy insights

firm characteristics and the cyclicality of r d investments the aim of this study is to combine micro aspects of firm behavior with macro aspects of business development and identify market conditions e g price competition and firm characteristics e g type of r d partners that enable a firm to have a pro cyclical anti cyclical or non systematic r d investment behavior the empirical results confirm to large extent a series of hypotheses as to innovation relevant firm characteristics that underline the three different behavior categories and allow us to make profiles of the three types of r d behavior

the case against patents evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity unless productivity is identifi ed with the number of patents awarded which as productivity is identifi ed with the number of patents awarded which as evidence shows has no correlation with measured productivity this disconnect is evidence shows has no correlation with measured productivity this disconnect is at the root of what is called the patent puzzle in spite of the enormous increase in at the root of what is called the patent puzzle in spite of the enormous increase in the number of patents and in the strength of their legal protection the us economy the number of patents and in the strength of their legal protection the us economy has seen neither a dramatic acceleration in the rate of technological progress nor a has seen neither a dramatic acceleration in the rate of technological progress nor a major increase in the levels of research and development expenditure major increase in the levels of research and development expenditure both theory and evidence suggest that while patents can have a partial equiboth theory and evidence suggest that while patents can have a partial equilibrium effect of improving incentives to invent the general equilibrium effect on librium effect of improving incentives to invent the general equilibrium effect on innovation can be negative the historical and international evidence suggests that innovation can be negative the historical and international evidence suggests that while weak patent systems may mildly increase innovation with limited side effects while weak patent systems may mildly increase innovation with limited side effects strong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side effects more generstrong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side effects more generally the initial eruption of innovations leading to the creation of a new industry from ally the initial eruption of innovations leading to the creation of a new industry from chemicals to cars from radio and television to personal computers and investment chemicals to cars from radio and television to personal computers and investment banking is seldom if ever born out of patent protection and is instead the fruit of a banking is seldom if ever born out of patent protection and is instead the fruit of a competitive environment it is only after the initial stage of rampant growth ends that competitive environment it is only after the initial stage of rampant growth ends that mature industries turn toward the legal protection of patents usually because their mature industries turn toward the legal protection of patents usually because their internal growth potential diminishes and they become more concentrated these internal growth potential diminishes and they become more concentrated these observations supported by a steadily increasing body of evidence are consistent with observations supported by a steadily increasing body of evidence are consistent with

the economic impact of licensed commercialized inventions originating in university research abstract the purpose of this article is to estimate quantitatively the contribution that university licensing makes to the national u s economy as regions and nations face increased economic problems they seek ways to augment opportunities for economic growth and to identify areas where public funding can be cut it is now well recognized that the research university can be a significant engine of economic growth and job creation university research and research related activities contribute in many important ways to modern economies notably through increased productivity of applied rd provision of highly valued human capital embodied in faculty and students development of equipment and instrumentation used by industry in production and research and creation of concepts and prototypes for new products and processes which may have some unexpected and large social and economic impacts yet clear documentation of the proportional contributions these make to economic growth remains elusive this article provides detailed estimates of the economic impact on the u s national economy of one core university activity licensing of university inventions to industry our approach combines licensing data for u s universities with national input output i o model coefficients and provides more valid and complete estimates of the national economic impacts of university licensing of intellectual property than have previously been available our results estimate national economic impact expressed as annual increases in gross domestic product gdp in total industry output and employment generated over a 15 year period summing over the entire 15 years for which we have data 1996 2010 we estimate that assuming no product substitution effects and a 2 10 royalty fee the total contribution of university licensing to gross industry output is at least 162 1 billion and as much as 686 9 billion 2005 dollars estimates based on 5 royalty rates yields an estimated impact of 293 3 billion 2005 dollars over the period assuming 2 royalty fees and no product substitution effects we estimate that over a 15 year period university licensing agreements based on product sales contributed at least 70 5 billion and as much as 277 6 billion 2005 dollars to the u s gdp with a moderately conservative estimate based on 5 royalty rates such agreements contributed more than 122 2 billion 2005 dollars the i o model also calculates the number of jobs person years of employment directly created or supported per million dollars of final purchases estimates of the total number of additional jobs created as a function of year due to university licensed products assuming no product substitution effects ranged from about 7000 jobs in 1996 to 23 000 in 2010 or more than 277 000 person years of employment over the entire 15 year period because of uncertainty we also provide estimates of the economic impact of university licensing income based on a range of product substitution rates 5 10 and 50 the magnitude of the estimated impact depends significantly on the assumptions made for example the royalty fees and substitution rates but even the most conservative yet reasonable assumptions yield estimates of very large impacts on gdp industry output and employment major discoveries emanating from academic and or publicly funded research have had enormous global economic and social impacts that are obvious but difficult to predict and quantify e g google the world wide web nanotechnologies etc although this article examines the economic impact of only a select technology transfer activity it nevertheless offers quantitative evidence that the economic impact of university research and technology transfer activities is significant

systematic peak load pricing congestion premia and demand diverting empirical evidence abstract this paper finds empirical support to systematic peak load pricing in airlines higher fares in ex ante known congested periods it estimates a congestion premia and supports the main empirical prediction in gale and holmes gale i holmes t 1993 advance purchase discounts and monopoly allocation of capacity american economic review 83 135 146 less discount seats on peak flights

science and the diffusion of knowledge abstract scientists social scientists and politicians frequently credit basic science with stimulating technological innovation and with it economic growth despite a substantial body of research investigating this general relationship relatively little empirical attention has been given to understanding the mechanisms that might generate this linkage this paper considers whether more rapid diffusion of knowledge brought about by the norm of publication might account for part of this effect we identify the importance of publication by comparing the patterns of citations from future patents to three groups of focal patents i those that reference scientific peer reviewed publications ii those that reference commercial non scientific publications and iii those that reference neither our analyses strongly implicate publication as an important mechanism for accelerating the rate of technological innovation patents that reference published material whether peer reviewed or not receive more citations primarily because their influence diffuses faster in time and space

firms transfer strategies with universities and the relationship with firms innovation performance based on a representative sample of swiss firms we empirically investigated strategies for knowledge and technology transfer ktt activities between business firms and universities as well as other public research institutions based on a cluster analysis of 19 different forms for ktt three types of ktt strategies were identified they were significantly correlated mainly to i the absorptive capacity of a firm ii several factors hampering ktt activities and iii some characteristics of the transfer process such as the number of partners the existence of contacts to foreign universities and the utilization of the mediating services of transfer offices furthermore it was found that ktt strategies related to the core transfer activities such as r d contracts are stronger correlated with innovation performance compared to strategies related to softer transfer forms copyright 2009 the author 2009 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

the globalization of r d results of a survey of foreign affiliated r d laboratories in the usa abstract this paper examines the globalization of innovation and the phenomenon of foreign direct investment fdi in research and development to do so it draws from a survey of foreign affiliated r d laboratories in the united states while the literature on foreign direct investment has emphasized the role of markets in driving off shore investments the main conclusion of this research is that the globalization of innovation is driven in large measure by technology factors of particular importance is the objective of firms to secure access to scientific and technical human capital

price discrimination in stackelberg competition we examine the effects of price discrimination in the stackelberg competition model for the linear demand case we show that the leader does not use any price discrimination at all rather the follower does all price discrimination the leader directs all of its first mover preemptive advantage to attract the highest value consumers who pay a uniformly high price we observe that profits and total welfare are larger and consumer surplus is smaller than those of the standard stackelberg competition model

advance purchase discounts and monopoly allocation of capacity optimal pricing by a monopoly airline that faces capacity constraints during the peak demand period is studied the existence of capacity constraints means that in order to expand output the airline must divert demand from the peak period to the off peak period a particular advance purchase discount policy is shown to be the profit maximizing method of selling tickets if the advance purchase requirement were infeasible output and total surplus would both be lower jel l12 substantial discounts for air travel are generally available to travelers who are willing to purchase tickets a week or more in advance of the departure date this paper demonstrates why the imposition of an advance purchase requirement may be a profit maximizing strategy for a monopoly airline facing capacity constraints during times of peak demand 1 the practice of imposing an advance purchase requirement on discount tickets is also placed in a favorable light in terms of its impact on social

recombinant innovation and the boundaries of the firm abstract recombinant innovation the combination of existing ideas is important for technological progress we want to understand how important market frictions are in stifling the transmission of ideas from one firm to another although the theoretical literature emphasizes the importance of these frictions direct empirical evidence on them is limited we use comprehensive data on patent applications from the european patent office and a multiple spells duration model to provide estimates that suggest that they are substantial it is around 30 more costly to successfully discover and utilize new ideas created in another firm than in your own this compares to the increased costs of accessing new ideas across national borders of around 7 and across technologies of around 20 these result point towards substantial imperfections in the market for technology

price discrimination in cournot nash oligopoly abstract the standard cournot nash oligopoly model is extended to encompass price discrimination where firms charge more than one price for the same product based on willingness to pay in the linear symmetric case the average price is not dependent on the extent of price discrimination

the relationship between u k banks and their small business customers much emphasis is placed upon the benefits to both parties of a good relationship between banks and their small business customers having explained the significance of smes in the u k economy the papers goes on to consider briefly some of the arguments which underpin the rationale for these relationships the roles of information and communication are discussed and the poor co ordination between banks smes and their accountants is highlighted evidence from over 6 000 small businesses in response to the forum of private business survey in 1994 is then presented this demonstrates the strong positive association between more participative relationships and more positive perceptions of their banks by firms finally it is suggested that a virtuous circle of information and communication could be established if the parties cooperate in a systematic process of risk assessment

product innovation product market competition and persistent profitability in the u s pharmaceutical industry increasingly strategy scholars are exploring the relationships between innovation competition and the persistence of superior profits sustained high profitability may result when a firm repeatedly introduces valuable innovations that service previously unmet consumer demands while the returns to the firm from each innovation may erode over time innovation ensures that overall the firm maintains a high performance position at the same time sustained high profitability may also accrue to firms that innovate less often but effectively avoid the competition that otherwise erodes high returns this paper elaborates these relationships before presenting an empirical analysis of the effects of differential innovative propensities and differential rates of competition on pharmaceutical firms abilities to sustain profit outcomes that are above those earned by competing firms the analysis which is situated within the u s pharmaceutical industry finds support for the expected relationship between high innovative propensity and sustained superior profitability but no support for a link between persistence and the ability to avoid competition copyright 1999 john wiley sons ltd

encouraging university entrepreneurship the effect of the bayh dole act on university patenting in the united states abstract universities are seen as a source of technology development that is useful to entrepreneurial activity as a result policy makers often consider mechanisms to stimulate technology commercialization at research universities as a way to encourage entrepreneurial activity in a region however the transfer of technology from universities to the private sector requires the exploitation of markets for knowledge which are fraught with difficulty arrow k 1962 economic welfare and the allocation of resources for inventions in nelson r ed the rate and direction of inventive activity princeton nj princeton univ press this article examines the effect of one u s public policy initiative the bayh dole act in the united states on one aspect of technology commercialization university patenting specifically the article explores the university share of patents from 1969 through 1996 across 117 lines of business and shows that the effectiveness of licensing in a line of business is significantly correlated with university share of patents in the post bayh dole period but not in the pre bayh dole period these results suggest that the bayh dole act provided incentives for universities to increase patenting in those fields in which licensing is an effective mechanism for acquiring new technical knowledge the paper discusses the implications of this shift in patenting for research and public policy

regional economic impacts of federal r d by funding source and performer type hicks d a and lee s g 1994 regional economic impacts of federal r d by funding source and performer type reg studies 28 619 632 guided by persistent spatial and sectoral concentration of federal r d we find that while defence r d is stimulative funds flowing to non defence non profit and educational research institutions are more so effects are stronger in larger metro scale regions and in local economies in which manufacturing accounts for greater shares of total employment moreover federal r d flows appear to have local investment effects as indicated by their capacity to accelerate the rate of local employment expansion in the total technology intensive tti subsector in which r d intensive goods account for significant portions of inputs and final output hicks d a et lee s g 1994 les impacts economiques regionaux des depenses de r et d federales suivant l origine et la destination des fonds reg studies 28 619 632 pilote par la concentration geographique et sectorielle des d

the international economics of intellectual property right protection a welfare theoretic trade policy analysis abstract this paper provides an analytical construct for examining the trade policy effects of greater intellectual property protection in technology importing countries it is shown that two types of conflict are likely to arise between net technology importers and exporters the first relates to the level of protection with importers preferring a low level and exporters a high one the second conflict hitherto unexplored relates to the manner of protection with importers likely to prefer discriminatory regimes favoring local r d creation whereas exporters would prefer nondiscriminatory protection in importing countries

scientific linkages and firm productivity panel data evidence from taiwanese electronics firms using a panel of electronics firms listed on the taiwan stock exchange this paper explores the spillover of scientific research to the private sector by looking at the impact of the intensity a patent s backward citation of scientific publications relative to citation of other patents on the patent owning firm s productivity to identify the causal effect we use measures of a firm s financial constraints as instrumental variables to account for the potential endogeneity of scientific citation intensity of a patent the empirical results suggest that the citation of scientific publications by a patent has a strong and positive effect on the patent owning firm s productivity

the importance of equity finance for r d activity this article analyzes the importance of equity finance for the r d activity of small and medium sized enterprises we use information on almost 6 000 german smes from a company survey using the intensity of banking competition at the district level as an instrument to control for endogeneity we find that a higher equity ratio is conducive to a higher r d intensity owners may only start r d activities if they have the financial resources to sustain them until successful completion we find a larger influence of the equity ratio for young companies equity may be more important for young companies which have to rely on the original equity investment of their owners since they have not yet accumulated retained earnings and can rely less on bank financing

cost of capital and public loan guarantees to small firms in this paper we study the determinants of the spread charged by banks under a uk policy intervention scheme aimed at supporting access to the credit market for small firms through guarantee backed loans we exploit a unique dataset containing data on 29 266 guarantee backed loans under the uk sflg scheme over the period 2000 to 2005 results suggest that lower spreads are offered for loans of larger amounts and higher durations for service firms for larger firms and for those located in the most advanced regions higher spreads are applied to high tech manufacturing firms and to loans issued for working capital purposes we also find that the presence of other extant debt is associated with a relatively higher spread and that this effect is especially significant for the subset of firms that have reached a maximum debt capacity based on collateralized assets further we also find that the higher the incidence of the publicly guaranteed debt over the total amount of outstanding loans the lower on average the spread however an increase in the guaranteed coverage leads to a contraction in the spread only for loans aimed at covering working capital needs rather than investments

the changing composition of innovative activity in the us a portrait based on patent analysis abstract in this paper patent bibliometrics are used to investigate shifts underway in the american innovation system patent indicators point to extraordinarily dynamic innovation in information and health technologies accompanied by a shift in the center of us innovation from the east to the west coast innovating companies are adapting to the demise of large corporate basic research laboratories by using their own research instead growth in university patenting is also striking and universities have become dominant patentees in a few large economically vibrant cities the importance of universities to local innovation has also been revealed by the growth in referencing from patents to papers which allows us to see that companies preferentially reference papers from in state public sector institutions