Donald Patton

Entrepreneurial Geographies: Support Networks in Three High-Technology Industries

Abstract Using a unique database derived from prospectuses for U.S. initial public stock offerings, we examine the location of four actors (the firm’s lawyers, the venture capitalists on the board of directors, the other members of the board of directors, and the lead investment banker) of the entrepreneurial support network for startup firms in three high-technology industries: semiconductors, telecommunications equipment, and biotechnology. We demonstrate that the economic geography of the biotechnology support network differs significantly from the networks in semiconductors and telecommunications equipment. Biotechnology has a far-more-dispersed entrepreneurial support network structure than do the two electronics-related industries. The case of biotechnology indicates that if the source of seeds for new firms is highly dispersed, then an industry may not experience the path-dependent clustering suggested by geographers. We argue that contrary to common belief, biotechnology and its support network do not exhibit as great a clustering as do semiconductors and telecommunications equipment and their support networks. This argument leads to an epistemological issue, namely, the lack of interindustry comparative work. This is an odd omission, since nearly all authors agree that industries are based on particular knowledge bases, yet few consider that the knowledge and the sources of it may have an impact on spatial distributions.

Does inventor ownership encourage university research-derived entrepreneurship? A six university comparison

This paper examines whether university ownership of inventions made by its personnel best serves the widely held social goals of encouraging technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. Using a hand-collected census of technology-based university spin-offs from six universities, one of which is the University of Waterloo and the only inventor ownership university in North America, we compare the number and type of spin-offs produced by these universities. We find suggestive evidence that inventor ownership universities can be more efficient in generating spin-offs on both per faculty and per R&D dollar expended perspective. We find that the field of computer sciences and electrical engineering generates a greater number of spin-offs than do our other two categories - the biomedical sciences, and the field of engineering and the physical sciences. In general, our results demonstrate that inventor ownership can be extremely productive of spin-offs. From these results, we suggest that governments seeking to encourage university invention commercialization and entrepreneurship should experiment with an inventor ownership system.

The Role of the University in the Genesis and Evolution of Research-based Clusters

This book rigorously explores the critical, initial stage of cluster emergence in which the seeds for further growth are sown. Whether economic growth actually occurs, however, ultimately depends on various regional conditions and the processes in place.

The Traffic Pattern on American Inland Waterways

AID to navigation has been one of the major purposes of annual federal expenditures on certain waterways within the United States. This long-term policy of waterway improvement and maintenance has made modern motor ship and barge transport feasible on rivers which otherwise would have remained unnavigable. By the middle of the twentieth century the annual ton-miles of transport service performed on the waterways far surpassed the volume moved in any earlier period, even including the pre-railroad era when waterways were the chief carriers. The construction of locks and dams to stabilize and deepen the waterways, along with channel dredging, have been in part responsible for this traffic increase. The upswing in total traffic tonnage has occurred mainly since 1925. An overall view of where waterway traffic has developed and where it has failed to develop appreciably is appropriate, together with some analysis of factors responsible for the differential development of traffic. Statistics of the overall density of traffic on individual rivers are almost meaningless because of major variations of traffic flow from point to point. Consequently, a map of traffic flow has been prepared in order to summarize the traffic density pattern for all parts of the inland water-

The Spatial Distribution of Entrepreneurial Support Networks: Evidence from Semiconductor Initial Public Offerings from 1996 through 2000

The Spatial Distribution of Entrepreneurial Support Networks: Evidence from Semiconductor Initial Public Offerings from 1996 through 2000* Working Paper 153 March 1, 2003 ©Copyright 2003 by BRIE Donald Patton Senior Research Associate Department of Human and Community Development University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616 Martin Kenney Department of Human and Community Development University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616 (530) 752–0328 (Office) (530) 752–5660 (Fax) mfkenney@ucdavis.edu and Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy UC, Berkeley * The authors thank the University of California Office of the President ’ Industry-University s Cooperative Research Program, the University of California, Davis Academic Senate, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for providing funding for this research project.

Responding to uncertainty: syndication partner choice by foreign venture capital firms in China

Cross-border venture capital investment has grown dramatically. Drawing upon observations about the liability of foreignness, previous research has shown that foreign venture capitalists (VCs) tend to partner with local VCs in order to offset information asymmetry and the liabilities of foreignness. Much of the literature has suggested that local VCs should help reduce operational uncertainty. This paper examines syndication partner choice in China, which today is likely the most uncertain environment in which foreign VCs operate on a large scale. This provides an ideal environment for understanding partner selection under uncertainty. Our results show that foreign investors are more likely to choose Chinese investors in later rounds and in more mature portfolio firms. While foreign firms with more Chinese experience are more likely to co-invest with Chinese VCs, the older foreign VC firms are less likely to do so. Remarkably, having a Chinese office made foreign VCs less likely to co-invest. In seed-stage investments, when uncertainty is the greatest, foreign firms are least likely to co-invest with Chinese VCs, and this was not affected by the maturation of the market, while at the later stage, when uncertainty is lowest, they are most likely to co-invest.

Initial Public Offering Database: Presentation

This data set is comprised of all initial public offerings filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from June 1996 through 2006, excluding spin-offs, mutual funds, REITs, and so-called small business IPOs.