Identifying the effects of technology transfer policy using a quantile regression: the case of South Korea
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Identifying the effects of technology transfer policy using a quantile regression: the case of South Korea Jaepil Han1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract The South Korean government provided policy levers for technology transfer by establishing the Technology Transfer Promotion Act in 2000. It also implemented a technology transfer promotion plan based on this law. Along with the law’s enactment, the Korean government required the establishment of technology licensing offices (TLOs) for national and public universities. Although this policy led to the quantitative expansion of TLOs, it did not result in qualitative growth. The Korean government implemented a supplementary program to support the leading TLOs’ labor and business expenses. In the current work, the author questions if the program had a significant effect on the performance of TLOs. I analyze the policy effect on the performance of TLOs, as measured by royalty income or the number of technology transfer contracts. In particular, the heterogeneous effect is examined by using quantile regression applied to publicly available university panel data from 2007 to 2015. The results corroborate that the program had a significant impact only on the lower 10% quantile. The government also provides programs for marketing, consulting, and manpower training. However, the policy only focuses on financial support, and the support provided to each university is uniform. In addition, results suggest that the support policy must be diversified based on the characteristics and research capacity of each university. Keywords Technology transfer policy · Technology licensing office · University TLOs · Quantile regression JEL Classification L24 · O32 · O38 · I28
1 Introduction Social discussions about the technology transfer activities of universities was lacking in Korea until the early 2000s. This lack of social discussion is partly because Korea’s science and technology policy was centered on government-funded research institutes (GRIs). Universities focused on a relatively pure academic role in the era of industrialization (1960s * Jaepil Han [email protected] 1
Department of Knowledge Economy, Korea Development Institute, Sejong, South Korea
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through 1990s). In addition, the high dependency of university research and development (R&D) expenditures on government funds resulted in state-directed research topics or outcome dissemination. Therefore, the incentive of universities and professors to transfer their technologies voluntarily decreased. In the 2000s, given the need for technology-led economic growth, Korea enacted the Technology Transfer Promotion Act. The main purpose of this law is the development of science and technology and its practical use. Since the enactment, the law has been revised to increase the incentives for technology commercialization by public research institutes. The country has implemented various policies to promote technology transfer from public institution
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