Knowledge Transfers between Canadian Business Enterprises and Universities: Does Distance Matter?
Julio Miguel Rosa & Pierre Mohnen
#2008-017
This study examines whether the transfer of knowledge flows from
universities to enterprises in Canada is hampered by the geographical
distance that separates them. The transfer of knowledge flows are
measured by the amount of R&D payments from business enterprises to
universities that are directly reported in Statistics Canada's survey on
Research and Development in Canadian Industry. We use data from the 1997
to 2001 surveys.
After controlling for unobserved individual heterogeneity, selection
bias as well as for other covariates that could affect the extent of
industry-university R&D transactions such as absorptive capacity,
foreign control, belonging to the same province, past experience with a
given university and other firm and university characteristics, it is
found that a 10% increase in distance decreases the proportion of total
R&D paid to a university by 1.4 percent for enterprises that do not
report any codified transfer of knowledge flow, and by half as much for
enterprises that report codified knowledge flows.
JEL codes: O3
Keywords: knowledge transfer, university/enterprise, codified/tacit, spatial proximity
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872