Research Universities and Regional High-Tech Firm Start-up and Exit

If localized knowledge spillovers are present in the university setting, higher rates of both start-up and/or survival would be observed in areas that are geographically proximate to the university. Using a detailed industry dataset for Texas for 1999:3-2005:2, we analyze start-up and exit rates for high-tech firms. Based on a Poisson Quasi-Maximum Likelihood estimation, we find evidence that the level of Ramp;D and proximity of a research institution positively affects the likelihood of technology start-ups. However, using both the Cox Proportional Hazards Model and Kaplan-Meier approach, our results suggest that geographic proximity to knowledge centers does not reduce hazard rates