IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0304560.html

Academic freedom and innovation

Author

Listed:
  • David B Audretsch
  • Christian Fisch
  • Chiara Franzoni
  • Paul P Momtaz
  • Silvio Vismara

Abstract

Academic freedom is a critical norm of science. Despite the widely postulated importance of academic freedom, the literature attests to a dearth of research on the topic. Specifically, we know little about how academic freedom relates to indicators of societal progress, such as innovation. We address this research gap by empirically assessing the impact of academic freedom on the quantity (patent applications) and quality (patent citations) of innovation output using a comprehensive sample of 157 countries over the 1900–2015 period. We find that improving academic freedom by one standard deviation increases patent applications by 41% and forward citations by 29%. The results are robust across a range of different specifications. Our findings constitute an alarming plea to policymakers: global academic freedom has declined over the past decade for the first time in the last century and our estimates suggest that this decline poses a substantial threat to the innovation output of countries in terms of both quantity and quality.

Suggested Citation

  • David B Audretsch & Christian Fisch & Chiara Franzoni & Paul P Momtaz & Silvio Vismara, 2024. "Academic freedom and innovation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(6), pages 1-23, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0304560
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304560
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304560
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304560&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0304560?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Mathias Dewatripont & Jeremy C. Stein, 2008. "Academic freedom, private‐sector focus, and the process of innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 617-635, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. J. Atsu Amegashie, 2025. "Useless Knowledge: Directed vrs Non-Directed Research," CESifo Working Paper Series 12304, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Henry Sauermann & Michael Roach, 2011. "Not All Scientists pay to be Scientists:," DRUID Working Papers 11-03, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    2. Ben-David, Dan, 2008. "Brain Drained: A Tale of Two Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 6717, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Erasmo Papagni, 2004. "Academic Research, Social Interactions And Economic Growth," Working Papers 10_2004, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    4. Gersbach, Hans & Schetter, Ulrich & Schmassmann, Samuel, 2023. "From local to global: A theory of public basic research in a globalized world," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    5. Fiona Murray, 2013. "Evaluating the Role of Science Philanthropy in American Research Universities," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 23-60.
    6. Simeth, Markus & Lhuillery, Stephane, 2015. "How do firms develop capabilities for scientific disclosure?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1283-1295.
    7. Michaël Bikard & Keyvan Vakili & Florenta Teodoridis, 2019. "When Collaboration Bridges Institutions: The Impact of University–Industry Collaboration on Academic Productivity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 426-445, March.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Schneider, Maik T., 2015. "On the global supply of basic research," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 123-137.
    9. Gersbach, Hans & Schneider, Maik & Schetter, Ulrich, 2015. "How Much Science? The 5 Ws (and 1 H) of Investing in Basic Research," CEPR Discussion Papers 10482, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Richard Jensen & Jerry Thursby & Marie C. Thursby, 2010. "University-Industry Spillovers, Government Funding, and Industrial Consulting," NBER Working Papers 15732, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Andrea, Canidio, 2009. "The production of science," MPRA Paper 25218, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Cristiano Antonelli & Chiara Franzoni & Aldo Geuna, 2011. "The Contributions of Economics to a Science of Science Policy," Chapters, in: Massimo G. Colombo & Luca Grilli & Lucia Piscitello & Cristina Rossi-Lamastra (ed.), Science and Innovation Policy for the New Knowledge Economy, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Chudnovsky, Daniel & López, Andrés & Rossi, Martín & Ubfal, Diego, 2006. "Evaluating a Program of Public Funding of Scientific Activity: A Case Study of FONCYT in Argentina," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 2831, Inter-American Development Bank.
    14. Michaël Bikard, 2018. "Made in Academia: The Effect of Institutional Origin on Inventors’ Attention to Science," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(5), pages 818-836, October.
    15. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Erasmo Papagni, 2006. "Social Rewards in Science and Economic Growth," Discussion Papers 10_2006, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    16. Stephan, Paula E., 2010. "The Economics of Science," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 217-273, Elsevier.
    17. Boudreau, Kevin J. & Lakhani, Karim R., 2015. "“Open” disclosure of innovations, incentives and follow-on reuse: Theory on processes of cumulative innovation and a field experiment in computational biology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 4-19.
    18. Bergemann, Dirk & Ottaviani, Marco, 2021. "Information Markets and Nonmarkets," CEPR Discussion Papers 16459, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. James Bessen, 2010. "Communicating Technical Knowledge," Working Papers 1001, Research on Innovation.
    20. Huang, Kenneth G. & Murray, Fiona E., 2010. "Entrepreneurial experiments in science policy: Analyzing the Human Genome Project," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 567-582, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0304560. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.