Royalty Sharing and Technology Licensing in Universities

Abstract

Using data for 102 U.S. universities, we show that royalty-sharing arrangements (cash flow rights) vary substantially across universities and that they are largely unrelated to most observed university characteristics including faculty size, quality, research funding, technology mix of the faculty, and size of the technology licensing office. However, higher inventors' royalty shares are associated with higher licensing income at the university, controlling for other factors. The results suggest that monetary incentives from inventions have real effects in the university sector. (JEL: O31, O34, L3, L01)