This paper provides an in-depth and critical analysis of the current Belgian fiscal regime towards business research and development (R&D) expenditures. The paper clearly shows that what matters the most is the way a policy decision is implemented. In this respect the current R&D tax credit...

This paper provides evidence showing that collaborative agreements in the IT industry contribute to decrease the R&D intensity of the largest firms. This is particularly true for acquisitions (as opposed to alliances, consortia and joint ventures) and for the mixed agreements (i.e. with a sales,...

This paper analyses several issues that arise when measuring technological specialisation with patent data. Three starting choices are required regarding the data source, the statistical measure and the sectoral aggregation level. We show that the measure is highly sensitive to the data source...

This paper details a survey methodology on technology-based small firms (TBSF) in Belgium. The survey’s objective is to better understand the factors underlying the creation and development of firms with high growth potentials. In this respect it focuses on the socio-economic factors...

This paper compares corporate and academic patents and tests whether they have similar value and similar determinants of value. The empirical results based on an in-depth analysis of 400 biotech patents applied by Belgian universities and firms lead to the following observations :(i) the value...

Using an original survey sample of 103 unquoted Belgian technology-based small firms (TBSFs), we examine the capital structure of start-up companies during their consecutive development stages. We find that internal funds, either alone as personal savings or in combination with family and...

This paper analyzes the role of patent filing fees requested by the member states of the European Patent Convention (EPC). We provide a first empirical evidence showing that the fee elasticity of the demand for priority applications is negative and significant. Given the strong variation in...