NBER Publications by Jeffrey L. Jensen

Over the past 60 years the United States has created the world's largest system of government laboratories. The impact of the laboratories on the private economy has been little studied though their research accounts for 14% of total U.S. R&D, more than the R&D of all colleges and universities combined. In this paper we study the influence of federal laboratory R&D on industrial research using a sample of industrial laboratories. In head-to-head comparisons with alternative measures, we find that Cooperative Research and Development Agreements or CRADAs, are the primary channel by which federal laboratories increase the patenting and R&D of industrial laboratories. With a CRADA industrial laboratories patent more, spend more on company-financed R&D and spend more of their own money on f...