On the Failure of University - Industry Research Collaboration to Stimulate High Quality Research in Japan

Using a panel of 30 Japanese chemical and pharmaceutical companies for the period of 1985 to 1998, we estimate the effects of university-industry research collaboration (UIC) on participating firms’ research output. We find, as in other studies in the field, that UIC leads to more research output, in terms of the number of patents obtained. In contrast to the results for the U.S., however, we find no evidence that UIC significantly affects quality adjusted patents, that is, citation weighted patent counts. By looking finely at what part of the quality ladder of patents UIC stimulates, we find that UIC increases only those patents with a small number of citations, thus failing to affect the “average” quality of patents. Discussions of possible reasons for this finding are also offered. JEL classifications: O32, O38, L65 key words: university-industry research collaboration, patent quality, science and technology policy ∗The authors are grateful to Takuma Takahashi, Tadahisa Koga, and seminar participants at Kyushu University and Tokyo Keizai University for their helpful suggestions and comments. †(Corresponding author): Faculty of Economics, Tokyo Keizai University. 1-7-34, Minami-cho, Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-8502, Japan. Phone: +81-42-328-7940. Fax: +81-42-328-7774. E-mail: [email protected]. ‡Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo.