Industry-University Collaboration and Commercializing Chinese Corporate Innovation

The paper presented in this ZEW Research Seminar examines how industry-university collaboration (IUC) enhances the commercialization of corporate innovation using a comprehensive dataset of 93,303 industrial firms and 153 notable research universities in China. Measuring IUC with the occurrence and frequency of patents co-assigned to both firms and universities, the authors first document that firms with more IUC activities have better performance in commercializing their technology. Instrumental variable regressions, dynamic difference-in-differences analysis, and matched sample regressions all support a causal interpretation of the effect. Further evidence suggests that the results can be attributed to two channels through which firms benefit from IUC: knowledge acquisition and talent recruitment.