Prof. Dr. David Heller

Discussion Papers

Heller, David; Kim, Daehyun; Harhoff, Dietmar (2025). Entrepreneurial Training and Startup Internationalization: Evidence from the German Accelerator Program, CEPR Discussion Paper, DP20888.

• The benefits and challenges of accessing international markets as a key strategy for many entrepreneurial ventures are well-known. But how can we effectively support startups’ expansion into foreign markets? This study takes an initial step to answer this question, arguing that entrepreneurial training can provide crucial experiential learning opportunities that foster startup internationalization. To empirically test our predictions, we explore a unique combination of proprietary application data from the German Accelerator (GA), a government-financed program that offers startups an international learning journey, and detailed startup- and founder-level information from Crunchbase and Revelio Labs, as well as qualitative evidence from a survey of GA alumni. We find that the average GA participant raises significantly more funding and hires more employees in the GA’s target countries, but not in their home markets, relative to a comparison group of startups that were admitted but did not attend for exogenous reasons. Quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests that in-person interactions in the target country are essential for eliciting these effects and that startups with limited prior international experience benefit most from participating in the program, both of which support our theoretical considerations about experiential learning.
• https://cepr.org/publications/dp20888
• Also published as: Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 25-17

Heller, David; Kim, Daehyun; Harhoff, Dietmar (2025). Entrepreneurial Training and Startup Internationalization: Evidence from the German Accelerator Program, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper, No. 25-17. DOI

• While internationalization efforts can help startups overcome barriers to growth, entering foreign markets remains a significant challenge. Accelerator programs play an important role in supporting startups' scaling ambitions by offering in-depth entrepreneurial learning opportunities. In this study, we examine whether and how such programs can facilitate startup internationalization. To this end, we leverage a unique dataset that combines proprietary application data from the German Accelerator (GA)-a government-financed program designed to support startups' international market entry-with detailed startup-level, founder, and investment information. We find that participating startups significantly raised funding and hired more employees in the GA's target countries relative to a comparison group of startups that were admitted, but did not attend for exogenous reasons. Consistent with our theoretical considerations about an experiential learning mechanism, these effects are muted for startups that took part in online programs that were introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the results are strongest among startups with limited international experience prior to participating. We further support these mechanisms with qualitative evidence from surveying GA alumni. Our study advances the understanding of the potential and limitations of startup accelerators in supporting international market entry, a key strategy for many entrepreneurial ventures today.
• Also published as: CEPR Discussion Paper DP20888

Harhoff, Dietmar; Heller, David; Momtaz, Paul P. (2024). Inventor Returns and Mobility, CESifo Working Paper, No. 11449.

• We show that firm and industry, rather than inventor and invention factors, explain more than half of the variation in inventor returns in administrative employer-inventor-patent-linked data from Germany. Between-firm variation in inventive rents is strongly associated with inventor mobility. Inventors are more likely to make a move just before a patent is filed than shortly thereafter and benefit from their move through a mobility-related marginal inventor return. Employers that pay inventor returns in excess of the expected return gain a favorable position in the market for inventive labor with subsequent increases in patent quality and quantity. Consistent with theoretical arguments, effect sizes also depend on employer-inventor technological complementarity, degree of competition, and invention quality.
• https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11449.html

Heller, David; Asam, Dominik (2024). Generative AI and Firm-level Productivity: Evidence from Startup Funding Dynamics. DOI

• New general-purpose technologies have the potential to fundamentally change the dynamics of entrepreneurial firms. This paper provides new evidence on the impact of Generative AI on startup productivity: We argue that valuable but non-exclusive technological innovations can be a source of competitive advantage if entrepreneurs leverage them as complementary assets to their existing skill set. To show this, we exploit the release of GitHub Copilot as a quasi-natural experiment affecting software-developing startups. We find a significant reduction in the time-to-initial-funding, an early-stage productivity indicator, by about 20% relative to comparable startups. These effects are strongest for startups whose founders have more technological or managerial experience. Our analysis highlights the considerable implications of GenAI as a new resource available to decision-makers, shaping startup dynamics and productivity.

Ciaramella, Laurie; Heller, David; Leitzinger, Leo (2023). Intellectual Property as Loan Collateral. DOI

• This study provides a first comprehensive picture of the use of intellectual property (IP) as loan collateral, its determinants, and its effect on firm trajectories. Using novel administrative data, we exploit the French institutional setting and show that firms from diverse industries use selected trademarks (72%), patents (26%), and designs (2%) to secure loans. We find that IP pledges have large positive effects on debt financing, in particular for small, financially constrained firms. The results are robust to exogenous variation in the pledgeability of alternative collateral. Further, using IP as loan collateral is associated with sizable increases in firm-level growth.

Gill, Andrej; Heller, David (2022). Leveraging Intellectual Property: The Value of Harmonized Enforcement Regimes.

• We provide new evidence on how intellectual property (IP) rights support external debt financing by investigating exogenous variation in patent right enforcement. Deploying a unique, large-scale sample of European firms, we exploit the 2004 EU Enforcement Directive, a major legislative change strengthening IP rights across Europe, as identifying event. Results show that firms with valuable patent portfolios disproportionally increase debt financing by about 21%. Effects are particularly pronounced for private SMEs, ex-ante financially constrained firms, and in competitive environments. Adding previously undisclosed patent collateral information provides suggestive evidence that enhanced IP enforcement benefits debt financing beyond a mere collateral channel.
• Available at SSRN
• Earlier version published under the title: Leverage Intellectual Property: The Value of Harmonized Enforcement Regimes - 2019

Heller, David; Leitzinger, David; Walz, Uwe (2022). Intellectual Property as Business Loan Collateral: A Taxonomy on Institutional and Economic Determinants. DOI

• Using intellectual property rights (IPR) as collateral to secure debt financing can form a promising strategy, in particular for small, financially constrained firms. Despite an ongoing shift to a more technology-based economy, the collateralizing of IPR is still trailing behind the use of traditional asset classes. In this paper, we develop a new taxonomy on the key determinants of using IPR as collateral. The taxonomy defines two pillars that govern the use of IPR collateral that distinguish between institutional and economic factors. The institutional pillar covers contract law, IPR registries, and banking regulation. We apply the taxonomy to the current legal and economic states in several industrialized economies to identify potential impediments to IPR-backed debt financing. The economic pillar constitutes the influence of IPR characteristics on the trade-off between the economic costs and benefits of collateralizing IPR. We propose that IPR collateral can have significant advantages regarding signaling, agency issues, and the creation of pledgable income. Based on these considerations we derive several testable hypotheses on the circumstances under which IPR collateral might be particularly well-suited to attract debt financing. Taken together, our taxonomy can be viewed as the foundation for future research on IPR as loan collateral for businesses.

Gill, Andrej; Heller, David (2019). Leverage Intellectual Property: The Value of Harmonized Enforcement Regimes, Proceedings of Paris December 2019 Finance Meeting EUROFIDAI - ESSEC 2019.

• This paper analyses the importance of intellectual property in determining capital structure decisions. We argue that firms can use their patent stock as collateral and thereby relax possible debt financing restrictions. Using data from the European Patent Office and balance sheet data of European companies, we find that larger and more valuable patent stocks lead to higher debt-ratios - controlling for well-established capital structure determinants. We further assess variation across as well as within industries and show that effects are mainly driven by tech-oriented and research intensive firms. Drawing on a legislative change in EU- law, allows us to establish a causal relationship between firms' patent portfolio and their use of debt. Results provide a new perspective on optimal capital structure decisions. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest to further harmonize enforcement rules on intellectual property to support financially constrained, innovative firms.
• Available at SSRN
• Later version published under the title: Leveraging Intellectual Property: The Value of Harmonized Enforcement Regimes - 2022