Academic Freedom, Private-Sector Focus, and the Process of Innovation

By Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont, Jeremy C. Stein. 2008

476 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We develop a model that clarifies the respective advantages and disadvantages of academic and private-sector research. Rather than relying on lack of appropriability or spillovers to generate a rationale for academic research, we emphasize control-rights considerations, and argue that the fundamental tradeoff between academia and the private sector is one of creative control versus focus. By serving as a precommitment mechanism that allows scientists to freely pursue their own interests, academia can be indispensable for early-stage research. At the same time, the private sector's ability to direct scientists toward higher-payoff activities makes it more attractive for later-stage research.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a2456ba7e8a5c6fd7286f1a51ecccde53cb425bd

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In Economics and Econometrics

In Management of Technology and Innovation

Citations in the corpus

Does Patent Strategy Shape the Long-Run Supply of Public Knowledge? Evidence from Human Genetics (2009, background): “they will likely impinge upon many different follow-on research lines and thus have a deterrent effect on a larger number of follow-on researchers (Aghion et al., 2005).”
Climbing atop the Shoulders of Giants: The Impact of Institutions on Cumulative Research (2011, unknown): “…cumulative knowledge production and suggests the value of research identifying the economic conditions and empirical circumstances that allow Open Science to succeed as an economic institution (Mokyr 2002; Aghion, Dewatripont, and Stein 2008; David 2001; Murray et al. 2009; Heidi Williams 2010).”
A multidimensional view of industrial and academic science (2011, methodology): “13 The joint observation of higher salaries and lower independence in industry raises the question whether higher salaries are used to compensate industrial scientists for lower levels of independence (Aghion et al., 2008).”
How should firms evaluate success in university-industry alliances? A performance measurement system (2011, unknown): “Senior academic researchers in particular are used to acting autonomously in pursuit of their scientific objectives to enhance their standing in the scientific community (Aghion et al., 2008).”
Flying the nest: how the home department shapes researchers’ career paths (2017, unknown): “At the same time, previous literature has mourned the potential brain drain from academia to industry that may impede knowledge production within universities (Aghion et al. 2008).”
Managing open innovation projects with science-based and market-based partners (2014, background): “Scientists in academia freely pursue own research interests while companies direct scientists towards particular research activities (Aghion et al., 2008).”