Table 3.

Definitions and summary statistics of variables

Variable	Definition
(Dependent variable)
Bankruptcy	Dummy variable: 1 if the firm goes bankrupt between periods t and t+1, 0 if the firm survives.
Merger	Dummy variable: 1 if the firm exits via merger between periods t and t+1, 0 if the firm survives.
Voluntary	Dummy variable: 1 if the firm voluntarily liquidates the business between periods t and t+1, 0 if the firm survives.
(Endogenous variable)
Patst	A stock of citation-weighted patents applied by the firm in period t.
Patst_gr	A stock of citation-weighted patents granted by the patent authority among patents applied by the firm in period t.
(Control variable)
Pre_pat	Dummy variable: 1 if the founder has experience of patent applications, 0 otherwise.
Size	Logarithm of the number of employees in the first year of observation.
Age_firm	Number of years after the foundation for the firm in period t.
Age_founder	Founders’ age at founding.
Edu_univ	Dummy variable: 1 if the founder had a university education before founding, 0 otherwise.
Edu_X	Dummy variable: 1 if the educational background of the founder is unknown, 0 otherwise.
(Instrumental variable)
Appro	Industry’s degree of appropriability of innovation outcomes.
Tech	Industry’s degree of technological opportunities.