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Testing the causal relationship between academic patenting and scientific publishing in Germany: Crowding-out or reinforcement?

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Abstract

The paper investigates the intertemporal spillover effects from patenting to future publishing activities and vice versa among university employees with a country focus on the German Laender Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia. Individual data from university patentees who successfully issued a patent at a public university before and after 2005 from the selected German Laender is used for measuring the Granger-causal effects between both activities. The interaction of personal and institutional characteristics of academic patentees is taken into account. By using Granger-causality tests in a dynamic panel model, we test the overall effect as well as group or Laender specific effects. Our findings show that there is a positive feedback relationship between patenting and publishing activities. An increase in patent applications results in higher numbers of future publications; reciprocally, an increase of publications contributes to a higher output of future patent applications. Additionally, we find interrelations of the research output with seniority, academic degree of the scientists and non-university work experience. The paper further presents findings about motives, skills and experience of so-called star scientists and other academic inventors.

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Notes

  1. In the context of the herewith presented paper and research, we took the opportunity to add missing information by drawing on patentee’s personal or university websites to specify age and highest university degree of the respondents which we did not receive through the questionnaires.

  2. According to the Web of Science factsheet, the SSCI-E covers over 12,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide from 256 categories, including Open Access journals and 148,000 conference proceedings from the most significant conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions worldwide.

  3. The selected Laender are thoroughly profiled in Grimm and Jaenicke (2012, p. 459).

  4. All other results are available on request.

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Acknowledgments

The research project was initially supported by the German Ministry of Economics (ERP Transatlantic Program). We are grateful for having had the opportunity to present an early version of this paper at the workshop “Academic Policy and the Knowledge Theory of Entrepreneurship” organized by Zoltan Acs, David B. Audretsch and Erik E. Lehmann at the University of Augsburg, Germany, in August 2012. We thank the discussant, Alexander Dilger, and session participants for valuable comments. Further, we acknowledge that the PATON | Landespatentzentrum Thüringen provided us with data on patent applications in 2005 as well as the survey respondents for their commitment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt, Nordhäuser Straße 74, Building 39, 99089, Erfurt, Germany

    Heike M. Grimm

  2. Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI), Regional Office Thuringia, Elisabethstraße 10, 99096, Erfurt, Germany

    Johannes Jaenicke

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  1. Heike M. Grimm
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Correspondence to Heike M. Grimm.

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Grimm, H.M., Jaenicke, J. Testing the causal relationship between academic patenting and scientific publishing in Germany: Crowding-out or reinforcement?. J Technol Transf 40, 512–535 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-014-9353-z

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