KDI Journal of Economic Policy

Korea Development Institute (한국개발연구원)
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Effects of Technology Transfer Policies on the Technical Efficiency of Korean University TTOs

  • Received : 2018.06.12
  • Published : 2018.11.30
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Abstract

The Korean government has provided various policy devices to boost technology transfers between academia and industry since the establishment of the Technology Transfer Promotion Act in 2000. Along with the enactment of the law, the Korean government mandated the establishment of a technology transfer office at national and public universities and encouraged technology transfer activities. Despite the quantitative expansion of technology transfer offices (TTOs), operational inefficiency was brought up. As a supplementary policy, the Korean government implemented a line of projects to support the labor and business expenses of leading TTOs. This research questions whether the project greatly affected the technical efficiency of TTOs. We analyze publicly available university panel data from 2007 to 2015 using a one-step stochastic frontier analysis. The results suggest that the program was marginally effective at shifting the technical efficiency distribution to the right on average, but it failed to maximize its impact by diversifying the policy means based on targets. The marginal effects of the program on technical efficiency differ according to the research capability and size of each school. We also compare technical efficiency against the licensing income at the start and end of the program. Technical efficiency increased for the leading TTOs, and both measures show improvements for unsupported TTOs. Our empirical results imply that diversifying the program for universities with different characteristics may have improved the effectiveness of the policy.

Keywords

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FIGURE 1. MARGINAL EFFECTS OF THE SUPPORT TYPE AND FACULTY SIZE ON THE INEFFICIENCY DISTRIBUTION

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FIGURE 2. MARGINAL EFFECTS OF R&D FUNDING AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT ON THE INEFFICIENCY DISTRIBUTION

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FIGURE 3. TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY VERSUS ROYALTY INCOME IN 2011 AND 2015

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FIGURE 4. CORRELATION BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS AND ROYALTY INCOME

TABLE 1—PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT IN TTOS AFTER THE CONNECT KOREA PROGRAM

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TABLE 2—SUMMARY STATISTICS

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TABLE 3—PARAMETER ESTIMATES FOR ONE-STEP SFA MODELS

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TABLE 4—MARGINAL EFFECTS OF INEFFICIENCY DETERMINANTS ON E(uit)

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TABLE 5—PARAMETER ESTIMATES WITH THE NUMBER OF TECH. TRANSFER CONTRACTS

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TABLE 6—MARGINAL EFFECTS OF THE INEFFICIENCY DETERMINANTS ON THE NUMBER OF TRANSFER CONTRACTS

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