Firms’ Nature and Characteristics and Their Attitude toward Publication: An Analysis of the Italian Biotech Sector

The aim of the paper is to analyse if the classification of the biotech firms according to the OECD criteria, together with another important firm characteristic, the size, are related to different behaviour of the firms toward the generation and circulation of knowledge; that is, if the specific activity of the firm, that implies its belonging to an OECD typology, has an effect on the number of publication done and on the number and quality of collaborations activated by that firm, even controlling for firm size. The empirical analysis shows that such relationship does exist.