Events

Abstract:
This natural field experiment tests the effects of purely symbolic awards on volunteer retention in a public goods context. The experiment is conducted at Wikipedia, which faces declining editor retention rates, particularly among newcomers. Randomization assures that award receipt is orthogonal to previous performance. The analysis reveals that awards have a sizeable effect on newcomer retention, which persists over the four quarters following the initial intervention. This is noteworthy for indicating that awards for volunteers can be effective even if they have no impact on the volunteers’ future career opportunities. The awards are purely symbolic, and the status increment they produce is limited to the recipients’ pseudonymous online identities in a community they have just recently joined. The results can be explained by enhanced self-identification with the community, but they are also in line with recent findings on the role of status and reputation, recognition, and evaluation potential in online communities.

Am Dienstag, 20. September 2016, 19:00 Uhr, wird in Saal E10 des Max-Planck-Instituts Thomas Kramler von der Europäischen Kommission, Leiter der Sektoruntersuchung e-commerce, zu den Zwischenergebnissen der Sektoruntersuchung vortragen.

Vorab wird in der Aktuellen Viertelstunde Dr. Ingo Brinker, LL.M. (Chicago) von Gleiss Lutz Rechtsanwälte über aktuelle fusionskontrollrechtliche Fragen (insbesondere Staatsunternehmen und Prioritätsprinzip) sprechen, die sich anlässlich der Neuordnung in der Saatgutbranche ergeben haben (ChemChina/Syngenta; Dow/Dupont; Bayer/Monsanto).

Wir bitten um Anmeldung bis zum 16. September 2016 bei delia.zirilli(at)ip.mpg.de.

Wir freuen uns auf interessante Diskussionen und Begegnungen.

Abstract:

This paper examines patent oppositions as firm-level responses to newly-granted patents. We present a citation-based construct for measuring the technological lineage to which a newly granted patent lays claims. This network-analytic construct, which we label technology trees, allows us to develop a refined explanation of patent oppositions by taking into account the ownership structures of the technology to which a particular patent relates. An application to the cosmetics industry reveals that the technology tree measure, which is calculated on the level of individual patents, usefully complements established network measures at the industry level, such as triplet counts for measuring patent thickets. This suggests a need for further and more fine grained analyses of technology trees as context in which patent oppositions play out.

Abstract

We study bilateral cross-licensing agreements among N (> 2) competing firms. We find that the industry-profit-maximizing royalty can be sustained as the outcome of bilaterally efficient agreements. This holds regardless of whether agreements are public or private and whether firms compete in quantities or prices. We extend this monopolization result to a general class of two-stage games in which firms bilaterally agree in the first stage to make each other payments that depend on their second-stage non-cooperative actions. Policy implications regarding the antitrust treatment of cross-licensing agreements are derived.

Bei dem Kartellrechtsvortrag wird Ministerialrat Dr. Armin Jungbluth, Leiter des Referats Wettbewerbs- und Verbraucherpolitik beim Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie, hochaktuell und aus erster Hand über den Stand der 9. GWB-Novelle berichten – unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des dann wahrscheinlich „druckfrischen“ Referentenentwurfs.

Wir bitten um Anmeldung bis zum 1.7.2016 bei Frau Delia Zirilli.

Abstract
Using a large scale experiment involving more than a thousand open source software programmers, we match individual monthly contributions to open source programs with behavior in online games we ran. We study how social preferences affect the patterns of production and the overall success of projects. We show in particular that groups with a larger share of reciprocators are more likely to fail, but conditional on not failing, are more successful. The effect is particularly strong for technological areas and development stages characterized by more variance in contributions.