Academic and industrial R&D: are they always complementary? A theoretical approach

Two strategies have largely been adopted by the US government to enhance the scientific academic contribution to industrial innovations and growth: financing academic research and granting academic ideas the same intellectual property rights (IPR) as industrial innovations. In distinguishing the stages of R&D within a dynamic general equilibrium model, it is found that academic government expenditures spur industrial R&D when academia and industry are almost equally efficient in their research capabilities and when firms have a high enough market size. Moreover, it is found that the softer IPR regime granted to academia increases the per capita growth rate of the economy. Copyright 2013 Oxford University Press 2012 All rights reserved, Oxford University Press.