University research is increasingly importantfor industrial innovation. Licensing provides an incentive for both faculty andcompanies to undertake the development of federally-funded ideas and theirtransfer to industry. However, skeptics question the effects of licensing onthe conduct of...

University technology transfer offices (TTOs), whichfacilitate and manage the disclosure and licensing of inventions withcommercial potential, must balance the objectives of the university that ownsthe inventions and those of the faculty who create them.A theoreticalmodel of disclosure and...

We examine the role of patents as signals used to reduce information asymmetries in entrepreneurial finance. A theoretical model gives conditions for a unique separating equilibrium in which startup founders file for patents to signal invention quality to investors, as well as appropriating...

We examine the interplay of the three major university actors in technology transfer from universities to industry: the faculty, the technology transfer office (TTO), and the central administration. We model the faculty as an agent of the administration, and the TTO as an agent of both the...