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University spillovers and new business location in high-technology sectors: Spanish evidence

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Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between knowledge spillovers from universities and new business location in high-technology sectors. We focus on the contribution to new business formation through spillovers stemming from three main university outputs: knowledge-based graduates, research activities, and technological knowledge. We construct a new dataset with information on 604 companies and 63 universities in Spain and group the data across 36 geographical areas from 2001 to 2004 (144 observations). After controlling for several traditional cost factors and agglomeration characteristics, we find that university spillovers are relevant in explaining the location of new businesses in high-technology sectors in Spain. Further, our analysis draws attention to the relevance of graduates as the main source of spillovers, while research activities and university technology do not have significant effects.

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Notes

  1. Understanding those firm characteristics that benefit from university spillovers is also an important issue. However, we do not review this strand of the literature because we focus on new entrants (new business) in particular. Nevertheless, this particular topic may be relevant in explaining how established firms take advantage of spillovers.

  2. Aerospace (Nace 35.3); pharmaceutical products (24.4); computers and office machinery (30); electronic and telecommunications products (32); scientific instruments (33).

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by a grant from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (SEJ2005-08972/ECON) and the Junta de Andalucía (P06-SEJ-02087 and P08-SEJ-03981). Earlier drafts were presented at the 11th European Network on Industrial Policy (EUNIP), San Sebastian (Spain), 10–12 September 2008, and EuroMOT 2008 (International Association for Management of Technology), Nice (France), September 17–19, 2008. The authors express their thanks to colleagues at these conferences for their helpful suggestions. The authors are also very grateful to an anonymous reviewer for constructive and insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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  1. University of Cadiz, Cadiz, Spain

    Manuel Acosta, Daniel Coronado & Esther Flores

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  1. Manuel Acosta
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  2. Daniel Coronado
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  3. Esther Flores
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Correspondence to Daniel Coronado.

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Acosta, M., Coronado, D. & Flores, E. University spillovers and new business location in high-technology sectors: Spanish evidence. Small Bus Econ 36, 365–376 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-009-9224-4

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