This paper argues incumbent firms may acquire innovative targets solely to discontinue the target's innovation projects and preempt future competition. We call such acquisitions "killer acquisitions." We develop a model illustrating this phenomenon. Using pharmaceutical industry data, we show...

Learning from the experiences of other innovators is a crucial aspect of the innovation process when several workers or teams explore new research avenues in parallel. In such a setting, under-exploration may result as workers attempt to free-ride on the new ideas generated by co-workers. This...

A firm's incentives to innovate deteriorate when other firms benefit from its R&D activities without incurring a cost. We show under which conditions common ownership of firms can mitigate this impediment to corporate innovation, and test the model's empirical predictions. Common ownership...