Does technological diversification spur university patenting?

Manuel Acosta (), Daniel Coronado and M. Ángeles Martínez ()
Additional contact information
Manuel Acosta: University of Cadiz
M. Ángeles Martínez: University of Cadiz

The Journal of Technology Transfer, 2018, vol. 43, issue 1, No 5, 96-119

Abstract: Abstract Technological diversity, or the breadth of technological knowledge embedded in patented inventions, refers to the range of different technological or economic fields covered by a patent. This paper explores the role of diversification scope in encouraging the production of new patents in European universities by including the diversification scope as an explanatory variable in a patent production function. We hypothesize that the more diversified the patented technology in the university, the greater the production of new patents in subsequent periods. To test this hypothesis we rely on a cross-sectional sample of patents owned by 141 European universities across Europe in 2001–2004. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis of diversification, which means that the production of new patents can be spurred by promoting or stimulating greater levels of technological diversification. This result is robust to both the use of various measures of diversification and to different econometric specifications.

Keywords: University patenting; Technological diversification; Entropy index; Multilevel negative binomial model; Knowledge production function; European universities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10961-015-9414-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jtecht:v:43:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10961-015-9414-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/10961/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10961-015-9414-y

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Technology Transfer is currently edited by Albert N. Link, Donald S. Siegel, Barry Bozeman and Simon Mosey

More articles in The Journal of Technology Transfer from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().