University Spin-Off's Transfer Speed: Analyzing the Time from Leaving University to Venture

For academic spin-offs I analyze the length of time between the founder's leaving of academia and the establishment of his firm. Technology transfer can take place even years after leaving the mother institution. A duration analysis reveals that a longer time-lag is caused by the necessity of assembling complementary skills, either by acquisition by a single founder or by searching for suitable team members. Furthermore, new ventures are established earlier if the intensity of technology transfer is high, the founders have access to university infrastructure, or received informal support by former colleagues. --academic spin-offs,technology transfer,skill complementarities

Low cost carriers and the evolution of the US airline industry

The article studies the evolution of the U.S airline industry from 1995 to 2009 using T-100 traffic data and DB1B fare data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Based on a differentiation in market size and major players, entry and exit, concentration, fares, service, costs and profits, the article provides a fresh look on recent developments in the structure, conduct and performance of the domestic U.S. airline industry in light of both the substantial growth of low cost carriers and severe internal and external shocks such as merger and bankruptcy activity or the recent recession. Unlike previous studies, a consistent split of the analysis in network carriers and low cost carriers is introduced. In general, we find that the competitive interaction between network carriers and low cost carriers increased substantially throughout the last decade and must be considered as the main driver of competition in the domestic U.S. airline industry. --Airline industry,deregulation,network carrier,low cost carrier

Churning of R&D personnel and innovation

This paper explores the role of R&D worker mobility on innovation performance. As one main novelty, we employ churning as a measure for worker mobility. Churning depicts the number of workers which are replaced by new ones. It is a very informative indicator since a firm may be exposed to simultaneous leave and inflow of R&D workers even if the size of R&D employment remains unchanged. Hence, we can separate the effect of replacement from net change in R&D workforce. Our results from estimating various knowledge production functions suggest an inverse u-shaped relationship. The exchange of R&D personnel fosters innovation through inter-firm knowledge spillovers and improved job-match quality up to certain threshold. The point when costs of churning exceed the benefits is reached faster if the R&D knowledge is non-duplicative. --innovation,churning,mobility

University Spin-Off's Transfer Speed - Analyzing the Time from Leaving University to Venture

For academic spin-offs I analyze the length of time between the founder's leaving of academia and the establishment of his firm. Technology transfer can take place even years after leaving the mother institution. A duration analysis reveals that a longer time-lag is caused by the necessity of assembling complementary skills, either by acquisition by a single founder or by searching for suitable team members. Furthermore, new ventures are established earlier if the intensity of technology transfer is high, the founders have access to university infrastructure, or received informal support by former colleagues

Employment growth in newly established firms : is there evidence for academic entrepreneur's human capital depreciation?

Human capital is known to be one of the most important predictors of a person's earnings. With regard to entrepreneurial success, founders' human capital is an important determinant of firm's employment growth as well. This paper investigates if the depreciation of a founder's academic knowledge affects a start-up's employment growth. The depreciation of academic knowledge is investigated by quantifying the effect of the time period which elapses after the founder has left university until the start-up is founded on firm's employment growth. Using quantile regressions, human capital depreciation is found to be of crucial importance for both ordinary academic start-ups and academic spin-offs, the founders of the latter suffering even more from human capital depreciation

The Role of Creative Industries in Industrial Innovation

This paper analyses the role of creative industries in affecting an economy's innovation performance. We conducted a survey of more than 2,000 creative industry enterprises from Austria which are defined by a combination of sector affiliation and the degree of creativity of the services they offer. We show that the creative industries are among the most innovative sectors in the economy. They support innovation in a variety of other sectors through creative inputs, such as ideas for new products (i.e. innovation content), supplementary products and services (such as software) or marketing support for product innovations. What is more, they are also an important user of new technology and demand innovations from technology producers, particularly information and communication technologies. Own innovative activities are a key driver for supporting innovation. Creative industries are no homogenous sector, however. While software and advertising show the strongest links to industrial innovation, architecture and content providers contribute rather little to industrial innovation. A main barrier to fully utilising the innovative potential of this sector is the lack of time at the side of creative entrepreneurs which reflects the small average firm size and the high share of sole traders. Innovation policy in support of creative industries should thus design programmes that are suitable for micro firms. --Creative Industries,Innovation,R&D,Inter-sector Interaction,Innovation Policy

Academic Spin-Off's Transfer Speed - Analyzing the Time from Leaving University to Venture

For academic spin-offs I analyze the length of time between the founder's leaving of academia and the establishment of his firm. Technology transfer can take place even years after leaving the mother institution. A duration analysis reveals that a longer time-lag is caused by the necessity of assembling complementary skills, either by acquisition by a single founder or by searching for suitable team members. Furthermore, new ventures are established earlier if the intensity of technology transfer is high, the founders have access to university infrastructure, or received informal support by former colleagues.

Exposure of Larvae of the Solitary Bee Osmia bicornis to the Honey Bee Pathogen Nosema ceranae Affects Life History

Wild bees are important pollinators of wild plants and agricultural crops and they are threatened by several environmental stressors including emerging pathogens. Honey bees have been suggested as a potential source of pathogen spillover. One prevalent pathogen that has recently emerged as a honey bee disease is the microsporidian Nosema ceranae. While the impacts of N. ceranae in honey bees are well documented, virtually nothing is known about its effects in solitary wild bees. The solitary mason bee Osmia bicornis is a common pollinator in orchards and amenable to commercial management. Here, we experimentally exposed larvae of O. bicornis to food contaminated with N. ceranae and document spore presence during larval development. We measured mortality, growth parameters, and timing of pupation in a semi-field experiment. Hatched individuals were assessed for physiological state including fat body mass, wing muscle mass, and body size. We recorded higher mortality in the viable-spore-exposed group but could only detect a low number of spores among the individuals of this treatment. Viable-spore-treated individuals with higher head capsule width had a delayed pupation start. No impact on the physiological status could be detected in hatched imagines. Although we did not find overt evidence of O. bicornis infection, our findings indicate that exposure of larvae to viable N. ceranae spores could affect bee development

Airline networks, mergers, and consumer welfare

We study the consumer welfare effects of mergers in airline networks. Based on the development of a general classification of affected routes, we apply a difference-indifferences approach to exemplarily investigate the price effects of the America West Airlines - US Airways merger completed in 2005. We find that although average prices increased substantially on routes in which both airlines competed either on a non-stop or one-stop basis prior to the merger, substantial average price reductions observed for routes without any premerger overlap suggest that the merger led to a net increase in consumer welfare