Since frontier academic research is often thought to be driven by recognition and promotion rather than commercial values, its real contribution to a country's technological progress is sometimes doubted. Against this skepticism, this paper argues that frontier academic research resembles a public good and creates important scientific foundations for industrial innovation. When diffused to industry, it significantly contributes to the country's technological improvement. Using panel OLS and dynamic panel OLS estimation methods to analyze a dataset of 18 OECD countries during 2003–2...