Katrin Hussinger

• PhD Applied Economics
• Professor (Full) at University of Luxembourg

We investigate whether family ownership is associated with a preference for patents or trade secrets. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms, we show that family ownership is negatively associated with patenting and positively associated with the usage of trade secrets. We further show that both relationships are moderated by firm performance below the as...

We investigate whether strengthened legal protection of trade secrets increases the likelihood of a firm being acquired. Stronger protection can make a firm more attractive for acquisition because of better safeguarding of trade secrets, but it may also increase information asymmetries that discourage potential acquirers. Using the staggered implem...

This paper shows that the American Inventor's Protection Act, which introduced the disclosure of patent applications after 18 months, that is, before a grant decision is taken and, hence, before it is known whether the respective technology will receive legal protection, is associated with a reduction of family firms’ research and development (R&D)...

How do intellectual property rights influence academic science? We investigate the consequences of the introduction of software patents in the United States on the publications of university researchers in the field of computer science. Difference-in-difference estimations reveal that software scientists at US universities produced fewer publicatio...

Family firms are known for their reluctance to invest in research and development. We show that strengthened trade secret protection is associated with higher R&D investment by family firms. More specifically, we show that the association between the strength of trade secret protection through the U.S. Uniform Trade Secrets Act and R&D investment i...

Firms use patents for blocking competitors’ innovation activities. Offensive blocking is a practice whereby firms patent alternatives of a focal invention preempting technological substitutes produced by competitors. Defensive blocking entails the creation of patent portfolios that block technologies in order to increase competitors’ willingness to...

Although merger and acquisitions (M&As) are acknowledged as an important means to access innovative assets and know‐how, firms’ inventive output often declines in the post‐M&A period. Financial, managerial and organizational constraints related to the M&A event contribute to inventive output declines and inventors’ departure. Prior literature treat...

This study elucidates the mixed gamble confronting family firms when considering a related firm acquisition. The socioemotional and financial wealth trade-off associated with related firm acquisitions as well as their long-term horizon turns family firms more likely to undertake a related acquisition than nonfamily firms, especially when they are p...

Increasing complexity and multidisciplinarity make collaboration essential for modern science. This, however, raises the question of how to assign accountability for scientific misconduct among larger teams of authors. Biomedical societies and science associations have put forward various sets of guidelines. Some state that all authors are jointly...

Probit regression of responsibility for misconduct. This table contains the full regression results used to generate Fig 3. (PDF)

Reproduction data. This file contains reproduction data in CSV format. The data is on the publication-author level and contains the following information. CASE is an index of ORI misconduct cases. INDEX is an index of affected publications. AUTHORNUMBER is the author number of the relevant author. NAUTHORS contains the total number of authors liste...

Reproduction code. This file contains R code that reproduces the findings presented in Figs 1–3 and S1 Table. (R)

Recent highly publicized cases of scientific misconduct have raised concerns about its consequences for academic careers. Previous and anecdotal evidence suggests that these reach far beyond the fraudulent scientist and (his or) her career, affecting coauthors and institutions. Here we show that the negative effects of scientific misconduct spill o...

Corporate venture investments are an established means for incumbent firms to access radical innovation. Drawing from a behavioural agency framework, we distinguish two mechanisms that govern the relationship between corporate venture investment and radical innovation, the safety net that corporate sponsors provide and control incentives. While the...

This article analyses the effects of public R&D subsidies on R&D input and output of German firms. We distinguish between the direct impact of subsidies on R&D investment and the indirect effect on innovation output measured by patent applications. We disentangle the productivity of purely privately financed R&D and additional R&D investment induce...

Recent highly publicized cases of scientific misconduct have raised concerns about its consequences for academic careers. Previous and anecdotal evidence suggests that these reach far beyond the fraudulent scientist and (his or) her career, affecting coauthors and institutions. Here we show that the negative effects of scientific misconduct spill o...

Start-ups may benefit in two ways from patenting their inventions: from the appropriation value and the certification effect of patents which reveals the ventures’ ‘quality’ to investors. As long as the patent office’s grant decision is pending both benefits may not realise. We confirm for a data-set of German start-ups that pending patent applicat...

We use an exogenous change in German Federal law to examine how entrepreneurial support and the ownership of patent rights influence academic entrepreneurship. In 2002, the German Federal Government enacted a major reform called Knowledge Creates Markets that set up new infrastructure to facilitate university-industry technology transfer and shifte...

In light of the increased demand for interoperability, fragmented ownership of intellectual property and high costs for communicating new technologies, open standard-setting activities emerged as an important coordination and diffusion mechanism. Little is known about the value of contributions to standard setting organizations (SSOs) for technolog...

Corporate venturing is an established means for incumbent companies to access radical innovation. We provide a new perspective for understanding the phenomenon of corporate venturing. Drawing from a behavioural framework based on agency theory and prospect theory, we are able to explain that: 1. corporate ventures are more successful in terms of ra...

Investment in research and development (R&D) is often quintessential for firms’ profitability and growth. As it creates intangible capital it is reflected in the firm’s market valuation. At the same time, R&D is a long-term and risky undertaking as compared to investments in fixed assets giving rise to asymmetric information between companies and i...

We examine how the ownership of intellectual property rights influences patenting of university-discovered inventions. In 2002, Germany transferred patent rights from faculty members to their universities. To identify the effect on the volume of patenting, we exploit the researcher-level exogeneity of the 2002 policy change using a novel researcher...

Extant literature holds that firm acquisitions create value through innovation if the knowledge bases of the acquirer and the target complement each other. Little is known about the value that patents associated with a target's knowledge convey to the acquirer, i.e., their value in securing market exclusion and freedom to operate in R&D. We argue t...

A recent theoretical model by Epstein and Schneider (2008) predicts that a firm’s assets will be undervalued by the market if the information surrounding these assets is ambiguous. The model further predicts that this effect is amplified if the underlying fundamentals are volatile. This article provides an empirical test.

In recent years, firms have increasingly contributed to and been confronted with a patent landscape characterized by numerous but marginal inventions, overlapping claims and patent fences. As a result, firms risk their patent applications to be pre-empted or to be infringed upon by rivals. While both aspects constitute major challenges for the appr...

This study investigates the impact of R&D subsidies on R&D investment during the past financial crisis. We conduct a treatment effects analysis and show that R&D subsidies increased R&D spending among subsidized small and medium sized firms in Germany during the crisis years. In the first crisis year, the additionality effect induced by public supp...

Literature has identified formal and informal channels in university knowledge and technology transfer (KTT). While formal KTT typically involves a legal contract on a patent or on collaborative research activities, informal transfer channels refer to personal contacts and hence to the tacit dimension of knowledge transfer. Research is, however, sc...

A common phenomenon in entrepreneurship is that employees turn away from employment to found their own businesses. Prior literature discusses the former employers’ characteristics that influence the creation of entrepreneurial ventures. An investigation of whether these characteristics also affect the success of the spawned ventures is missing so f...

Open standard-setting organizations (SSOs) have emerged as important coordination and diffusion mechanism for information and communication technologies. Open standards are developed non-discriminatorily and licensed to anybody at reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Little is known about the value of IP contributions to open standards for tech...

Classical patent literature assumes that patents grant well-defined legal rights to exclude others from practicing an invention. In this scenario, start-up companies benefit from the exclusive right to commercialize patent-protected inventions and the certification effect of patents which signals the ventures’ “quality” to investors. If the decisio...

Knowledge transfer from science to industry has been shown to be beneficial for the corporate partner. In order to get a better understanding of the reasons behind these positive effects, this study focuses on the junction of science and industry by comparing characteristics of academic inventions that are transferred to industry and those staying...

Although prior research finds that insider trades generate abnormal returns, evidence on the nature of information that insiders use in their trading decisions is scant. Extant studies examining whether insider transactions are associated with significant future corporate events assume that insiders have foreknowledge of these events ex-ante when t...

A growing literature aims at determining the private value of patents. It has been shown that patents and the citations they receive by future patent applications contribute significantly to the private value of firms beyond their R&D stocks. But it has also been shown that citations can explain very little of the variance of the patent value distr...

Patent races are models of strategic interactions between firms competing to develop an invention. The winning firm secures a patent, protecting the invention from imitation. This paper tests the assumption made about the reward structure in patent races, both in discrete and complex industries. We identify patent race winners using detailed inform...

This paper develops a theoretical framework linking internal resistance to external knowledge (sources). The literature often refers to internal resistance against externally developed knowledge as the Not Invented Here Syndrome. In line with the Social Identity Theory we argue that external knowledge might increase a comparison of the in-group's e...

This study investigates whether standard patent measures for the importance and basicness of patents are able to distinguish between, “wacky,” patents and a control group of randomly drawn patents. Our findings show that forward citations are good predictors of importance. However, the, “wacky,” patents have higher originality, generality and avera...

The knowledge produced by academic scientists has been identified as a potential key driver of technological progress. Recent policies in Europe aim at increasing commercially orientated activities in academe. Based on a sample of German scientists across all fields of science, we investigate the importance of academic patenting. Our findings sugge...

The not-invented-here (NIH) syndrome refers to internal resistance in a company against externally developed knowledge. In this paper, we argue that the occurrence of the NIH syndrome depends on the source of external knowledge and the success of the firm that aims at adapting external knowledge. In line with social identity theory, we hypothesize...

Merger and acquisitions (M&As) have been an important tool for reorganizing the European market since the establishment of European Economic and Monetary Union. This paper suggests that European integration helped and encouraged European firms to source technology across national borders in Europe, establishing European innovative firms. The figure...

There is a growing literature that aims at assessing the private value of knowledge assets and patents. It has been shown that patents and their quality as measured by citations received by future patents contribute significantly to the market value of firms beyond their R&D stocks. This paper goes one step further and distinguishes between differe...

In recent years, firms have increasingly contributed to and been confronted with a patent landscape characterized by numerous but marginal inventions, overlapping claims and patent fences. Literature suggests that both the fragmentation of ownership and the threat of a firm’s patent applications being blocked by competitors’ patents lead to increas...

Established firms often face significant obstacles to innovation. As a solution, it has been suggested to form corporate ventures. Based on a sample of corporate and independent ventures in German manufacturing, we show that corporate ventures are more innovative than the control group, i.e. the independent ventures. In particular, corporate ventur...

Patent pendencies create uncertainty in research and development (R&D) collaboration agreements, resulting in a threat of expropriation of unprotected knowledge by potential partners, reduced bargaining power and enhanced search costs. In this paper, we show that - depending of the type of partner - uncertain intellectual property rights (IPR) lead...

Inter-departmental innovation collaboration facilitates innovation performance. At the same time, it has been identified as source of increased coordination costs. Using organizational information processing theory, this paper builds and tests hypotheses on the costs and benefits of innovation-related collaboration within firms. Based on a sample o...

Corporate scientific publications are often presented as a strategic means for firms to create prior art with the objective to prevent others from patenting related inventions. This presumes that corporate publications enter the pool of prior art which is relevant to judge the novelty of patent applications at the patent office and that corporate s...

Inventors often experience a low productivity after their company has been subject to a merger or acquisition (M&As). It is of central managerial interest to identify factors facilitating the integration of new inventive staff and thereby counteracting innovation declines after M&As. This paper provides empirical evidence into the role of acquiring...

This paper empirically investigates a sample of German domestic merger and acquisitions (M&As) in the 1990s to analyze the importance of a related technology portfolio in the decision to acquire a particular firm. The novelty of this analysis lies in the fact that the sample does not contain exclusively large firms, but also a large share of small...

Established firms often face significant obstacles to innovation. As a solution, it has been suggested to form corporate ventures. Based on a sample of corporate and independent ventures in German manufacturing, we show that corporate ventures are more innovative than the control group, i.e. the independent ventures. In particular, corporate ventur...

Firm acquisitions have been shown to serve as a way to gain access to international markets, technological assets, products or other valuable resources of the target firm. Given this heterogeneity of takeover motivations and the skewness of the distribution of the deal value we show whether and how the importance of different takeover motivations c...

While often presumed in academic literature and policy discussions there is little empirical evidence showing that academic patents protect more basic inventions than corporate patents. This study provides new evidence on the basicness of academic patents using German professor patents linked to patent opposition data from the European Patent Offic...

The increasing commercialization of university discoveries has initiated a controversy on the impact for scientific research. It has been argued that an increasing orientation towards commercialization may have a negative impact on more fundamental research efforts in science. Several scholars have therefore analyzed the relationship between public...

In recent years, firms have increasingly contributed to and been confronted with a patent landscape characterized by numerous but marginal inventions, overlapping claims and patent fences. Literature suggests that both the fragmentation of ownership and the threat of a firm's patent applications being blocked by competitors' patents lead to increas...

This paper analyzes the effect of public R&D subsidies on firms' private R&D investment per employee and new product sales in German manufacturing. Parametric and semiparametric two-step selection models are applied to this evaluation problem. The results show that the average treatment effect on the treated firms' R&D intensity is positive. The es...

This paper shows that firms engage in horizontal mergers and acquisitions to pre-empt competition in technology markets. Making use of the patent application procedure at the European Patent Office we introduce a measure for potential entry barriers in technology markets.

Literature has identified formal and informal channels in university technology transfer. While formal technology transfer typically involves a legal contract on a patent or on collaborative research activities, informal transfer channels refer to personal contacts and hence to the tacit dimension of knowledge transfer. Research is, however, scarce...

Gaining access to technological assets and patents, in particular, has long been a major motive and objective for firm acquisitions. On the one hand, patents are used as a building instrument for the acquirer’s technology portfolio. On the other hand, patents can be attractive because of their strategic value as a bargaining chip, e.g. in licensing...

The growing importance of technology-relevant non-publication output of university research has come into the focus of policy-makers' interest. A fierce debate arose on possible negative consequences of the increasing commercialization of science, as it may come with a reduction in research performance. This paper investigates the relationship betw...

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) constitute a disruption to the working environment of the inventive labor force of the acquired company. If inventors would respond with a decline of their patent productivity or departure from the firm this can be detrimental to the innovative process within the merged entity and can be contradictory to the aims of...

Over the last few years, worldwide mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have increased sharply both in terms of value and volume. This development has not only been driven by corporate acquirers but also to an increasing extent by private equity investors. In this paper, we analyze differences in acquisition motives for corporate and private equity inves...

The role and importance of technology in firm acquisitions significantly differs depending on the motivation for the acquisition. Distinguishing between strategic investors with respect to technology and acquirers with a purely financial interest in the target firm we provide empirical evidence on the different role of technologies for a sample of...

In the 1990s, patenting schemes changed in many respects: Upcoming new technologies accelerated the shift from price competition towards competition based on technical inventions, a worldwide surge in patenting took place, and the 'patent thicket' arose as a consequence of strategic patenting. This study analyzes the importance of patenting versus...

This paper contributes empirically to our understanding of informed traders. It analyzes traders' characteristics in a foreign exchange electronic limit order market via anonymous trader identities. We use six indicators of informed trading in a cross-sectional multivariate approach to identify traders with high price impact. More information is co...

This paper tests some of the predictions of recent advances in trade theory that have focused on different trade patterns of firms within the same sector. Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2005) develop a model in which innate productivity differences between firms determine the degree of international engagement of firms: The least productive firms prod...

The growing importance of technology relevant non-publication output of university research has come into the focus of policy-makers? interest. A fierce debate arose on possible negative consequences of the increasing commercialization of science, as it may come along with a reduction in research performance. This paper investigates the relationshi...

Mit dem Ziel die technologische Wettbewerbsfähigkeit zu steigern, investieren die Staaten der OECD jährlich beträchtliche Summen in die Förderung von Forschungs- und Entwicklungsaktivitäten (FuE). Angesichts knapper öffentlicher Budgets ist der Effektivität und Effizienz dieser Förderung eine hohe Bedeutung beizumessen. Neuere Methoden der Wirkungs...

In the context of increasing globalization of markets, merger and acquisition activities in the 1990s are said to be driven by reorganization processes with respect to concentration on firms’ core competencies in order to increase or maintain market power in international markets. This paper empirically investigates a sample of German domestic merg...

This paper examines the causal relationship between productivity and exporting in German manufacturing. We find a causal link from high productivity to presence in foreign markets, as postulated by a recent literature on international trade with heterogeneous firms. We apply a matching technique in order to analyze whether the presence in internati...

Gravity type models are widely used in international economics. In these models the inclusion of time-fi0xed regressors like geographical or cultural distance, language and institutional (dummy) variables is often of vital importance e.g. to analyse the impact of trade costs on internationalization activity. This paper assesses the problem of param...

We briefly review the rationale behind technological alliances and provide a snapshot of their role in global competition, especially insofar as it is based around intellectual capital. They nicely illustrate the increased importance of horizontal agreements and thus establish the relevance of the topic. We move on to discuss the organisation of in...

This paper analyzes the effects of public subsidies on R&D expenditure in the German manufacturing sector. The focus is on the question whether public R&D funding stimulates or crowds out private investment. Cross sectional data at the firm level is used. By applying parametric and semiparametric selection models, it turns out that public funding i...

We introduce a new hybrid approach to joint estimation of Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) for high quantiles of return distributions. We investigate the relative performance of VaR and ES models using daily returns for sixteen stock market indices (eight from developed and eight from emerging markets) prior to and during the 2008 fi...