Skilled unemployment and the creation of academic spin-offs: a recession-push hypothesis

Push factors associated with necessity entrepreneurship are largely neglected in the academic entrepreneurship literature. We link research on technology transfer to the literature on opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship, showing that the rate of academic spin-off creation is positively associated with the skilled unemployment rate. This longitudinal study of 559 spin-offs launched between 1999 and 2013, which controlled for several university- and context-level factors, showed that a higher level of unemployment reduced the probability of academic spin-off creation up to a threshold, beyond which the effect was reversed. By contrast, the relative skilled unemployment level was related positively to the probability of academic spin-off, particularly high-tech spin-off, creation. The relationship between the level of skilled unemployment and the creation of high-tech spin-offs was moderated positively by university research orientation and regional research and human capital intensity.