Graduate Theses & Dissertations

: Academic Efficiency; Universities produce a significant and increasing share of basic research that is later commercialized by firms. We argue that the university's prominence as a producer of basic research is the result of a differential efficiency in research production that cannot be replicated by firms or individual agents - teaching. By using research accomplishments to signal knowledge and attract tuition-paying students, universities are uniquely positioned to undertake certain types of research projects. However, in a market for innovation without patent rights, a significant and increasing number of basic research projects, that are social welfare improving, cannot be initiated by firms or universities. The extension of patent rights to university-generated research elegantly redresses this issue and leaves us to ponder important questions about the future of our innovation-driven economies. Author Keywords: Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, Research, Science Technology and Innovation Policy

: Pathways to Innovation; Research and development activities conducted at universities and firms fuel economic growth and play a key role in the process of innovation. Specifically, prior research has investigated the widespread university-to-firm research development path and concluded that universities are better suited for early stage of research while firms are better positioned for later stages. This thesis aims to present a novel explanation for the pervasive university-to-firm research development path. The model developed uses game theory to visualize and analyze interactions between a firm and university under different strategies. The results reveal that as academic research signals knowledge it helps attract tuition paying students. Generating these tuition revenues is facilitated by university research discoveries, which, once published, a firm can build upon to make new innovative products. In an environment of weak intellectual property rights, moreover, the university-to-firm research development path enables firms to bypass the hefty costs that are involved in basic research activities. The model also provides a range of solution scenarios where a university and firm may find it viable to initiate a research line. Author Keywords: Game theory, Intellectual property rights, Nash equilibrium, Research and development, University to-firm research path

: Range-Based Component Models for Conditional Volatility and Dynamic Correlations; Volatility modelling is an important task in the financial markets. This paper first evaluates the range-based DCC-CARR model of Chou et al. (2009) in modelling larger systems of assets, vis-à-vis the traditional return-based DCC-GARCH. Extending Colacito, Engle and Ghysels (2011), range-based volatility specifications are then employed in the first-stage of DCC-MIDAS conditional covariance estimation, including the CARR model of Chou et al. (2005). A range-based analog to the GARCH-MIDAS model of Engle, Ghysels and Sohn (2013) is also proposed and tested - which decomposes volatility into short- and long-run components and corrects for microstructure biases inherent to high-frequency price-range data. Estimator forecasts are evaluated and compared in a minimum-variance portfolio allocation experiment following the methodology of Engle and Colacito (2006). Some consistent inferences are drawn from the results, supporting the models proposed here as empirically relevant alternatives. Range-based DCC-MIDAS estimates produce efficiency gains over DCC-CARR which increase with portfolio size. Author Keywords: asset allocation, DCC MIDAS, dynamic correlations, forecasting, portfolio risk management, volatility

: Disability-Mitigating Effects of Education on Post-Injury Employment Dynamics; Using data drawn from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s (WSIB) Survey of Workers with Permanent Impairments, this thesis explores if and how the human capital associated with education mitigates the realized work-disabling effects of permanent physical injury. Using Cater’s (2000) model of post-injury adaptive behaviour and employment dynamics as the structural, theoretical, and interpretative framework, this thesis jointly studies, by injury type, the effects of education on both the post-injury probability of transitioning from non-employment into employment and the post-injury probability of remaining in employment once employed. The results generally show that, for a given injury type, other things being equal, higher levels of education are associated with higher probabilities of both obtaining and sustaining employment. Author Keywords: permanent impairment, permanent injury, post-injury employment

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