Donald Siegel
Professor and Department ChairRoom: Sage 3502
Tel: (518) 276-2049
Email: sieged@rpi.edu
Web page: www.rpi.edu/dept/economics/www/faculty/siegel.html
Degrees: Ph.D., Columbia University Graduate School of Business, 1988
M.Phil., Columbia University Gradutate School of Business, 1986
B.A., Columbia College, 1981
Research: A primary focus of my current research is evaluation and assessment of public-private research partnerships, including science parks, incubators, research joint ventures, and university technology transfer partnerships, such as licensing agreements between universities and firms, sponsored research agreements, and university-based startups. I am also serving on a National Academy of Sciences research team that is conducting a three-year study of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program across federal agencies. This work builds on my previous research on the impact of public and private investments in technology (R&D and computers) and education on productivity and labor composition. I have also recently co-edited special issues of Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Journal of Business Venturing, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Technology Transfer, and Small Business Economics on issues relating to university technology transfer, entrepreneurial development, and corporate social responsibility.
I am also working on several studies of the economic and strategic implications of changes in corporate control, using matched employer-employee data from the U.K. and Sweden. A recent paper in The Review of Economics and Statistics assesses the productivity of approximately 36,000 U.K. manufacturing establishments before and after management buyouts (MBOs). I find that MBO establishments were less productive than comparable plants before the transfer of ownership and that these plants experienced a substantial increase in productivity after a buyout. These post-buyout productivity gains appear to be pervasive across industries. The results imply that the improvement in performance may be due to measures undertaken by new owners or managers to reduce the labor intensity of production, through the outsourcing of intermediate goods and materials. A second paper, co-authored with my colleague, Ken Simons, examines whether there are differential effects on plant productivity for different types of ownership changes, such as partial and full acquisitions and divestitures, and related and unrelated acquisitions. Our results suggest that ownership change results in an increase in relative productivity, especially for full acquisitions and divestitures and unrelated acquisitions. We also find that plants involved in ownership change experience increases in average employee age, experience, and the percentage of employees with a college education. Ownership change also leads to an increase in earnings and a reduction in the percentage of female workers. Finally, I also continue my research program on the strategic implications of corporate social responsibility.
Selected Publications:
"Assessing the Impact of Management Buyouts on Economic Efficiency: Plant-Level Evidence from the United Kingdom," The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 87, No. 1, February, 2005, pp. 148-153. (with R. Harris and M. Wright).
"Assessing the Impact of Organizational Practices on the Relative Productivity of University Technology Transfer Offices: An Exploratory Study," Research Policy, Vol. 32, No. 1, January 2003, pp. 27-48 (A previous version of this paper appeared as NBER Working Paper #7256, July 1999-with D. Waldman and A. Link).
"Corporate Social Responsibility: A Theory of the Firm Perspective," Academy of Management Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, January 2001, pp. 117-127 (with A. McWilliams).
"Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance: Correlation or Misspecification?," Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 21. No. 5, May 2000, pp. 603-609 (with A. McWilliams).
"Scale Economies and Industry Agglomeration Externalities: A Dynamic Cost Function Approach," American Economic Review, Vol. 89, No. 1, March 1999, pp. 272-290 (with C.J.M. Paul).