Institute News

On Thursday, 6 September 2018, Felix Pöge received the EPIP Best Paper Award for Young Researchers for the paper “A Firm Scientific Community”. The prize is bestowed with 500 Euros and was conferred upon him during the EPIP 2018 Conference at the ESMT Berlin. Felix Pöge is Doctoral Student and Junior Research Fellow at the department Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research.
 

The paper investigates the extent to which firms participate in scientific communities’ activities and whether this facilitates the exchange and transfer of scientific knowledge to firms’ technological activities. The focus is on two modes of interactions of firms with scientific communities: the participation in and the sponsorship of international scientific conferences. In particular, the focus is on the field of computer science. The paper is joint work with Dr. Stefano Baruffaldi, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute.
 

First, the results document that both conference participation and sponsorship by firms is frequent and concentrated at events of the highest quality. Even within individual conferences, firm contributions stand out in quality. Second, firms are significantly more likely to cite in their scientific articles and patents scientific articles presented at a conference which they attended relative to articles presented at comparable conferences.
 

To provide causal evidence, the authors use the fact that academic researchers are more likely to attend conferences whose locations they can access easier by airplane. Thus, at a conference, firms have a higher likelihood to observe research by researchers with a direct flight to that conference.
 

EPIP (European Policy for Intellectual Property) is an international, independent, interdisciplinary, non-profit association of researchers with the objective to be a leading European platform for the analysis and discussion of intellectual property systems and intangible assets. EPIP encourages research regarding economic, legal, managerial, social, political and historical aspects of intellectual property rights at national, European and international levels. It contributes ideas, concepts and discussions that will promote innovation, productivity and growth in Europe and beyond and informs and encourages policy-oriented discussion involving political and administrative bodies and stakeholders in Europe. EPIP cooperates with other associations with similar objectives.

On 13 August 2018, Laurie Ciaramella received the AoM Best Dissertation Award Finalists for her thesis “Trade and Relocation of Intellectual Property: Essays on the Markets for Patents” during the Technology and Innovation Management Division Meeting of the Academy of Management in Chicago.

For her thesis, Laurie Ciaramella uses in-depth empirical analysis to explore understudied aspects of the markets for patents, on which firms exchange intangible assets that provide them with a temporary monopoly right on a technology. The main approach is an empirical microeconomic analysis, which is complemented using insights from economic theory, understanding of the law and tax subtleties of the patent system, and knowledge regarding the management of Intellectual Property assets by firms.

The thesis contributes to the understanding of the markets for patents, by highlighting novel motives for their use, by emphasizing firms’ strategies regarding the management of their Intellectual Property assets, and by providing original evidence on the scope and dynamics of these markets, as well as on unexplored sources for their malfunctioning.

Laurie Ciaramella graduated at MINES ParisTech. Her thesis was supervised by Yann Ménière and Catalina Martinez. Since December 2017, Laurie Ciaramella is Senior Research Fellow at the department Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research.

On 13 August 2018, Laura Rosendahl Huber, Ph.D., and Laura Bechthold received the Best Empirical Paper Award for their paper “Yes, I Can! –A Field Experiment on Female Role Model Effects in Entrepreneurship” during the Entrepreneurship Division Business Meeting of the Academy of Management in Chicago.

The paper examines how exposure to female entrepreneurial role models influences the development of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, attitudes and intentions among female students. Drawing on a field experiment and social learning theory as well as existing research concerning role model effects, the study provides evidence that role model effects do not only occur by chance, but can be purposefully triggered in an educational setting. Hence, exploiting female role model effects may serve as an effective mechanism to foster female entrepreneurship.

The prize, endowed with USD 1,500, is sponsored by the Kennesaw State University.

The prize, endowed with EUR 1,000, is conferred annually by a scientific committee composed of five prominent Italian antitrust professionals, three officers and two lawyers, for the best dissertation in the area of competition and consumer law.

The award is just one of the initiatives of the association, all of which are devoted to promoting excellence in antitrust education and practice in the memory of Elena Messina. Messina, a young and promising lawyer who graduated summa cum laude from LUISS University with a dissertation on efficiency and consumer welfare in EU and US anti-monopoly laws, died in 2012 in a road accident. She was working for the Italian Antitrust Authority at the time.

Galli was presented with the prize by the Vice President of the Association, Filippo Alberti, on 28 September 2017 at the seat of the Antitrust Authority in Rome during the conference “Competition issues related to the freedom to connect”.

The Max Planck Society awards the prize, endowed with EUR 7,500, with the intention to motivate talented junior scientists and researchers to pursue a future research career.

Fabian Gaessler’s thesis is dedicated to the empirical study of the enforcement and trade of patent rights in Europe. The means available to an inventor to enforce his exclusive right against others and/or to sell his protected idea represent fundamental preconditions for a functioning patent system, and ultimately for incentivizing innovation. Fabian Gaessler uses quantitative methods to address inter alia the question as to what extent the current institutional design in Germany is conducive to patent enforcement and whether it qualifies as a blueprint for a European unified system.

Since 1978, the Max Planck Society honors up to 30 young scientists and researchers every year with the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievement - to date, more than 940 scientists and researchers.

The paper examines the impact and signaling effects of crowdfinancing on subsequent venture capital funding rounds. Drawing on a choice experimental research design the author finds causal evidence that crowdfunding – relative to other prefunding sources – is often a negative signal for professional venture investors, but that the “crowd” can nonetheless and under certain circumstances send positive signals increasing the likelihood of subsequent financing rounds.

The prize, endowed with 500 Euro, is granted by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology together with the Leuphana Research Center for Entrepreneurship.

The paper examines the impact and signaling effects of crowdfinancing on subsequent venture capital funding rounds. Drawing on a choice experimental research design the author finds causal evidence that crowdfunding – relative to other prefunding sources – is often interpreted as a negative signal by professional venture investors, but that the “crowd” can nonetheless and under certain circumstances send positive signals increasing the likelihood of subsequent financing rounds.

The prize is awarded annually under the auspices of the President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert for the most important dissertation of the year in each of three areas: Humanities, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences and Technology. The prize recognizes excellent dissertations that are also of great current relevance to society.

In the absence of Norbert Lammert, legal scholar Dr. Fischmann was awarded the prize by Vice-President of the Bundestag Edelgard Bulmahn on 8 November 2016 at the Marie-Elisabeth Lüders Building in Berlin.

The prize, endowed with EUR 2,000, is awarded by the Karl Schlecht Foundation. The non-profit foundation aims at improving leadership in business, society and politics by humanistic values and encourages and supports impact oriented projects and institutions in the funding areas leadership, ethics, education, culture and technology.

The paper examines the impact and signaling effects of crowdfinancing on subsequent venture capital funding rounds. Drawing on a choice experimental research design the author finds causal evidence that crowdfunding – relative to other prefunding sources – is often a negative signal for professional venture investors, but that the “crowd” can nonetheless and under certain circumstances send positive signals increasing the likelihood of subsequent financing rounds.

As early as August, the team of authors consisting of Matthias Dorner, Dietmar Harhoff, Tina Hinz, Karin Hoisl and Stefan Bender was awarded the AoM TIM Best Paper Award for the paper “Social Ties and Quality Signals – Lessons from the Migration of East German Inventors” at the Academy of Management Meeting 2016 in Anaheim, California.

The paper dealt with the impact of social ties and publicly observable performance signals on the migration of knowledge workers. The fall of the Iron Curtain and German reunification were used as a natural experiment for the migration decision of East German inventors.

Results showed that regions with more pronounced social ties across the border prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain attracted more inventors as of 1990. Furthermore, mobility decisions made by inventors with visible performance signals were substantially less impacted by social ties than those of inventors who lacked these signals. The project was conducted with researchers from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg.