The relevant economics literature on the impact of RandD on patenting activity falls within two methodological areas of inquiry. The first area might be classified as a test of the Schumpeterian hypothesis. The second and lesser research area might be classified as an estimation of the knowledge production function relationship between RandD and patenting. This paper focuses on estimates of the RandD-to-patenting relationship for a random sample of small, entrepreneurial firms whose research projects were supported through the US Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Our paper contributes to the RandD-to-patenting literature in two ways. It examines empirically a unique set of small, entrepreneurial firms funded by the public sector, and it explores the effect of the gender and ethnicity of firm owners on the propensity of their firms to patent from funded research projects.
