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Incentives for Academic Entrepreneurship and Economic Performance: Sweden and the United States

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  • Henrekson, Magnus

    () (Stockholm School of Economics)

  • Rosenberg, Nathan

    () (Stanford University)

Abstract

The recent 'scientification' of commercial technology has brought the interface between universities and industry into sharp focus. In particular, academic entrepreneurship, i.e., the variety of ways in which academics take direct part in the commercialization of research, is widely discussed. The purpose of this paper is to compare academic entrepreneurship in the US and Sweden and attempt to explain why the US academic system appears to have been more successful in spawning academic entrepreneurship compared to its Swedish counterpart despite large levels of R&D spending and comprehensive government support schemes in Sweden. Our analysis points to weaknesses in the Swedish incentive structure in key respects: the rate of return to human capital investment, incentives to become an entrepreneur and to expand existing businesses, and insufficient incentives within the university system to adjust curricula and research budgets to outside demand. Several policy measures during the 1990s have reduced the weaknesses in the Swedish incentive structure. The current emergence of a more vibrant entrepreneurial culture in Sweden in some areas is consistent with these changes, although the rules of the game are still unfavorable relative to the US. Our analysis suggests that further measures favoring entrepreneurial activity would encourage academic entrepreneurship even further.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Research Institute of Industrial Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number 530.

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Length: 71 pages
Date of creation: 03 Mar 2000
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0530

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Postal: Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden
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Web page: http://www.ifn.se/
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Keywords: Academic entrepreneurship; Innovation; R&D; Spin-off firms; Technology transfer; University-industry relations; Universities and business formation.;

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References

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Goldfarb, Brent & Henrekson, Magnus & Rosenberg, Nathan, 2001. "Demand vs. Supply Driven Innovations: US and Swedish Experiences in Academic Entrepreneurship," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 0436, Stockholm School of Economics.
  2. Goldfarb, Brent & Henrekson, Magnus, 2001. "Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Policies towards the Commercialization of University Intellectual Property," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 463, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 26 May 2002.
  3. Peter Franz & Martin T.W. Rosenfeld & Diana Roth, 2002. "Was bringt die Wissenschaft für die Wirtschaft in einer Region?," IWH Discussion Papers 163, Halle Institute for Economic Research.
  4. Goldfarb, Brent & Henrekson, Magnus, 2003. "Bottom-up versus top-down policies towards the commercialization of university intellectual property," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 639-658, April.

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