This paper analyses the impact of public innovation subsidies on private innovation expenditure. In the empirical economic literature there is still no common support for the hypothesis of either a complementary or a substitutive relationship between public funding and private investment. We...

This paper considers the U.S. Small Business Innovation research (SBIR) program as a policy fostering academic entrepreneurship. We highlight two main characteristics of the program that make it attractive as an entrepreneurship policy: early-stage financing and scientist involvement in...

This paper analyses the impact of the Italian Startup Act which entered into force in December 2012. This public policy provides a unique bundle of benefits, such as tax incentives, public loan guarantees, and a more flexible labor law, for firms registered as “innovative startups” in Italy....

This study tests for financial constraints on Ramp;D investment and how they differ from capital investment. To identify constraints in the access to external capital, we employ a credit rating index. Our models show that internal constraints, measured by mark-ups, are more decisive for Ramp;D...

This paper investigates how competition and firm size affect the relationship between market uncertainty and Ramp;D investment. We use an intuitively appealing measure of firm-specific uncertainty along with panel data to show that firms invest less in current Ramp;D as uncertainty about market...

This study investigates how local milieus foster innovation success of firms. We complement the common practice of linking firm performance indicators to regional characteristics with survey evidence on the perceived importance of locational factors. While the former approach assumes that...

We analyze financial constraints for Ramp;D, where we account for heterogeneity among investments which has been neglected in previous literature. According to economic theory, investments should be distinguished by their degree of uncertainty, e.g. routine Ramp;D versus cutting-edge Ramp;D....

The real options investment theory shows that greater uncertainty about market revenues reduces current Ramp;D investment by increasing the value of waiting. This paper presents empirical evidence that patent protection mitigates the effect market uncertainty on Ramp;D investment

Knowledge spillovers to competitors are regarded as an important aspect of the innovation process. While a company possibly benefits from incoming information on successful Ramp;D conducted by other companies, a generally high probability of leakage of knowledge in an industry will negatively...

Do academic scientists bring valuable human capital to the companies they found or join? If so, what are the particular skills that compose their human capital and how are these skills related to firm performance? This paper examines these questions using a particular group of academic...