This paper examines the role of venture capital on a firm's innovation activities by using a data set of German technology-based firms founded between 1996 and 2005. Innovation is proxied by patent counts and an index of innovativeness which reflects the degree to which a young firm has...

We present evidence on venture capitalists' (VCs) impact on turnover of executives for a sample of nearly 47,000 German high-tech start-ups between 1995 and 2004. We confirm that the presence of VCs increases the probability of a change in the initial executive team. Additionally, we take a...

This article explores the propensity to patent in the light of the disclosure effect. Unlike earlier approaches concerned with the patenting decision, we take into account that a disclosure effect may decrease the merits of patenting by facilitating inventing around the patent for competitors....

Innovators seek to protect their intellectual assets by patenting them, at the same time trying to avoid any disclosure of critical knowledge. Given that a patent specification has to include a clear description of the patented matter so that anybody skilled in the art is enabled to reproduce...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the two basic effects of patenting: the positive effect of temporarily mitigating competition, and the negative effect of mandatory disclosure of a patent application. Providing empirical evidence for the presented theoretical...

This paper presents a theoretical model on firms' patenting decision in vertically differentiated markets. The model's prediction regarding patenting and rival's market entry decision are then tested empirically. We find that in industries which are characterized by easy-to-use knowledge...

The sensitivity of innovation activities with respect to the business cycle is often assumed to be small. In this paper the hypothesis on cyclical dependence of innovation activities is tested for firms in the German manufacturing, and additionally for SMEs. To this end firms? innovation...

We present evidence on venture capitalists? (VCs) impact on turnover of executives for a sample of nearly 47,000 German high-tech start-ups between 1995 and 2004. We confirm that the presence of VCs increases the probability of a change in the initial executive team. Additionally, we take a...

Barriers to entry are regarded as major impediments to the working of markets. Entry must not necessarily actually take place - the perceived threat of entry may encourage incumbent firms to behave as if they are in a competitive market, even if they are not. We present empirical evidence on...