Exploring the Link Between Academic Science and Industrial Innovation

Lee Branstetter

Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2005, issue 79-80, 119-142

Abstract: Over the last fifteen years, patent citations to scientific articles have increased rapidly. Is this indicative of increasingly powerful knowledge spillovers from academic science to industrial innovation? This paper seeks to shed light on that question by conducting statistical analysis of the universe of patent citations to scientific research papers found in a random sample of nearly 30,000 U.S. patents issued between 1983 and 1996. I find evidence that the propensity of patents to cite academic science has risen sharply, even controlling for changes in the volume and distribution across fields of U.S. patents. I also find that patent citations to science are concentrated in a narrow set of fields of science and technology. Finally, I provide evidence that patents which cite science are of significantly higher quality than patents that do not.

Date: 2005
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Chapter: Exploring the Link between Academic Science and Industrial Innovation (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adr:anecst:y:2005:i:79-80:p:119-142

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