JSTOR

* I thank Fran Featherston, Lowell Mininger, and Mark Nadel of the U.S. General Accounting Office, Jesse Reyes of Venture Economics, and David Gleba and Rolf Selvig of VentureOne for access to data; Horace Crouch and Robert Wrenn of the U.S. Department of Defense for assistance in arranging interviews with awardees; and Zoltan Acs, Michael Barclay, Lewis Branscomb, Douglas Diamond (the editor), Kenneth Flamm, Paul Gompers, Adam Jaffe, Steven Kaplan, Scott Wallsten, several current and former SBIR program managers, an anonymous referee, and participants in seminars at Georgia Tech, Harvard University, the University of California, Davis, the University of Mannheim, the University of Maryland, and Virginia Tech, as well as in the July 1995 and July 1996 NBER Science and Technology Policy program meetings, the November 1996 NBER Corporate Finance program meeting, and the February 1998 National Academy of Sciences “Symposium on the SBIR Program” for helpful comments. Chris Allen, Cedric Escalle, Mannie Liu, and Kathleen Ryan provided research assistance. I thank the Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government and the Division of Research at Harvard Business School for financial support. All errors are my own.