Does Cooperation with Universities and KIBS Matter? Firm-level Evidence from Spain

This manuscript contributes to the literature on firm cooperation with universities and KIBS by framing the analysis according to the literature on causal effects, comparing the effect of the two different agents and exploring which firms benefit more from cooperation with a specific partner. Results shows that the lower bound for the effect is around 27-30% increase in sales from new products for both types of partners. After covariates and fixed effects are used, it is found that this effect is not likely driven by time-varying unobservable factors. Moreover, we show that firms that benefit the most from cooperation with universities are different from those firms that benefit the most from cooperation with KIBS.