Create, protect, capture : the impact of trade secrets and non-compete agreements on technological entrepreneurship

Over the last years, firms have increasingly pursued ways to protect the knowledge they possess. The purpose of this thesis is to understand impact of two intellectual property rights tools –trade secrets and non-compete agreements –on technological entrepreneurship. I express technological entrepreneurship as the entry of firms, both new and established, in new technological domains. The aim of the study is to assess if a stronger enforcement of these tools is beneficial for entrepreneurial activity in technological markets. To achieve this goal, I have performed a Poisson panel estimation analysis on a sample comprising 4380 observations, each representing a state and technological category, in a specific year. The main empirical findings point out that the use of trade secrets has a positive impact in the entry of firms in a new technological domain, while non-compete agreements do not. These results are of practical relevance and present both practitioners and policy makers with a possible approach to enhance entrepreneurial activity