Dennis Patrick Leyden

Familiarity and Group Productivity

The effects of familiarity on group productivity were examined. Familiarity refers to the specific knowledge workers have of their jobs, co-workers, and work environment. In this study of coal-mining crews, absenteeism led to staffing changes that affected the level of familiarity in the work group. Data from 26 crews in two underground coal mines indicate that lower levels of familiarity are associated with lower productivity.

Federal laboratories as research partners

Since the passage of the National Cooperative Research Act (NCRA) in 1984, nearly 600 formal research joint ventures (RJVs) have been filed with the U.S. Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission. Researchers have documented this trend and have examined, both theoretically and empirically, various aspects of collaborative research behavior. However, the composition of the membership of RJVs has yet to be explored. In this paper we present a theoretical explanation consistent with the empirical observation that Federal laboratories are most prevalent as research partners when the membership of the RJV is large.

A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Decision to Locate on a University Research Park

University research parks constitute a potentially important mechanism for university technology transfer and regional economic development. Unfortunately, there is little theoretical and empirical evidence on the firm-level choice decision to locate on such a facility. We fill this gap by outlining and testing a theoretical model of this selection process. Our empirical results suggest that firms locating on university research park are more research active and more diversified than observationally equivalent firms.

Why are governmental R&D and private R&D complements?

It is well known that governmental R&D and private R&D have complementary relationship. However, no previous study has provided an explanation for why that complementary relationship exists. This paper argues that infratechnology is the critical link between governmental and private R&D and that the observed complementarity is the result of technical complementarity at the production level between funding, infratechnology, and knowledge sharing. A theoretical framework based on this argument is developed and examined empirically for supporting evidence. Evidence of technical complementarity is found as well as evidence that governmental R&D stimulates the sharing of knowledge.

Universities as research partners in publicly supported entrepreneurial firms

Partnerships between universities and industrial firms can play a key role in enhancing competitiveness because they provide a conduit for the spillover of knowledge from the academic organization where knowledge is created to the firm where it is transformed into innovative activity. We set forth in this paper a model of industry/university participation, and we test the model empirically, using research project data on entrepreneurial firms that were funded through the US Department of Energys Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. We find that larger firms are more likely to be involved in a research partnership with a university, in general, as are firms with founders who have an academic background. We find the latter result holds across disaggregated types of university partnerships, as well. We find no empirical evidence that the size of the SBIR award influences the likelihood of a research partnership.

Regional Appropriation of University-Based Knowledge and Technology for Economic Development

Economic development practitioners and scholars recognize the link between universities and regional economic development. It is predicated on the spillover of knowledge from universities to commercialization. The literature has focused on the supply side, which involves university research and technology transfer mechanisms. We examine the role played by the demand for university-based knowledge and university-developed technology. We identify links between businesses and the university as a key conduit facilitating the spillover of knowledge using data on the Department of Energy’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. We provide supply-side evidence on university research relationships and how the use of knowledge and technologies that flow from a university affect economic growth. We identify the role that SBIR-funded businesses play in the spillover of knowledge from the creating organization to where that knowledge is used and commercialized. Our results suggest that knowledge is systematically transmitted through university-related research.

Donor-Determined Intergovernmental Grants Structure

The lack of simple language to describe the structure of intergovernmental grant programs and a failure to recognize that such programs are chosen by legislators whose preferences differ from those of recipients has led to an inability to develop a theory of why intergovernmental grants exist and why grant programs take the forms that they do. By reducing the complexities of grant programs to a simple structure of rates, bases, and purposes, this article is able to provide a conceptual framework for viewing individual grant programs as components of a comprehensive intergovernmental grants structure chosen through a legislative process in which individual legislators have preferences that are distinct from those of their recipients. Administrative costs play an important role in keeping the resulting grants structure simple, and the existence of categorical grants is shown to depend on the existence of spillover effects, fiscal illusion, or political asymmetry.

The effects of governmental financing on firms' R&D activities: a theoretical and empirical investigation

There is a long history of governmental support for private innovative activity in the U.S.A. However, the economic research on this topic has been narrow in focus, emphasizing primarily the relationship between the level of governmental R&D and the corresponding (in a causal sense) level of private R&D. In this paper, we explore the effects of governmental financing on another aspect of private innovative behavior—the sharing by firms of innovation-related knowledge. Based on a simple model of private innovative activity in the face of an exogenous governmental R&D contracts/grants structure, we find, among other things, that governmental R&D allocations spur industrial R&D laboratories toward greater sharing of their innovation-related knowledge.

Tax policies affecting R&D: an international comparison

As more and more emphasis is being given to the role of government in supporting innovation-related activity, a clearer understanding of the historical intent of R&D-related tax policies (by far the most common mechanism for support of R&D) and of the effectiveness of these policies appears warranted. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it provides an overview of the history of R&D-related tax policies, both in the USA and in twenty-two other industrial countries Second, it reviews the extant empirical evidence on the effectiveness of R&D tax credits. And third, it offers a critique of R&D tax policies per se.

Privatization, Bureaucracy, and Risk Aversion

The role of governmental risk aversion in the decision to privatize the production of goods and services has not been examined closely. Using a model of a risk-averse, single-service Niskanen bureaucrat, we determine the conditions under which a bureaucrat will prefer to privatize rather than produce in-house. If the private-sector firm is risk neutral, the result will be a fixed-fee contract with complete insurance. If the private-sector firm is risk averse, the result will be a cost-plus contract with the degree of cost sharing determined by the bureaucrats share of total risk aversion. In both cases, the bureaucrats sponsor may affect the likelihood of privatization by manipulating the rewards and penalties imposed on the bureaucrat.