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THE IMPACT OF ACADEMIC PATENTING ON THE RATE, QUALITY AND DIRECTION OF (PUBLIC) RESEARCH OUTPUT *
Author(s) -
AZOULAY PIERRE,
DING WAVERLY,
STUART TOBY
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
the journal of industrial economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.93
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1467-6451
pISSN - 0022-1821
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6451.2009.00395.x
Subject(s) - quality (philosophy) , economics , selection (genetic algorithm) , public support , political science , econometrics , public economics , computer science , philosophy , epistemology , artificial intelligence
We examine the influence of faculty patenting on the rate, quality, and content of public research outputs in a panel dataset of 3,862 academic life scientists. Using inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTW) to account for self‐selection into patenting, we find that patenting has a positive effect on the rate of publications and a weak positive effect on the quality of these publications. 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 misplaced.