Membership platforms allow creators to crowdfund a monthly income, while campaigns on conventional reward crowdfunding portals aim to reach a specified funding target within a pre-set period. We study transaction-level data from Patreon, the biggest membership platform, to gain insights about...

We analyze the characteristics of new businesses in the German ICT industry, distinguishing them based on their choice between two IPR regimes: open source software (OSS) or closed source software (CSS). The share of new firms with an OSS-based business model has increased considerably over the...

We analyze the characteristics of new businesses in the German ICT industry, distinguishing them based on their choice between two IPR regimes: open source software (OSS) or closed source software (CSS). The share of new firms with an OSS-based business model has increased considerably over the...

The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected not only incumbent firms, but also the emergence of start-ups. This paper investigates and analyzes the pandemic's effect on new business formation, as well as business exits and insolvencies, in Germany. We find that the overall level of business...

The paper extends the findings of Coe and Helpman (1995) model of R&D spillovers by considering foreign direct investment (FDI) as a channel for knowl- edge spillovers in addition to imports. Deeper insights on the issue are provided by examining inter-relationship between knowledge spillovers...

The emergence of Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) business models as a successful alternative to conventional uniform pricing brings up new questions related to the task of pricing. We investigate the eect of a reduction of privacy on consumers' purchase decisions (whether to buy, and if so how much to...

We analyse pricing, effort and tipping decisions in the online service Google Answers. While users set a price for the answer to their question ex ante, they can additionally give a tip to the researcher ex post. In line with the related experimental literature we find evidence that tipping is...

Bloggers devote significant time not only producing content for others to read, watch or listen to, but also paying attention to and engaging in interactions with other bloggers. We hope to throw light not only on the factors that gain bloggers significant readership and lively interactions with...

We apply the property rights theory of Grossman-Hart-Moore in the music industry and study the optimal allocation of copyright between the artists who create music and the labels who promote and distribute it. Digital technology opens up a role for new intermediaries. We find that entry of...

So-called open source software (OSS) is marked by free access to the software and its source code. Copyright-based OSS licenses permit users to use, change, improve and redistribute the software, which is designed and developed in a public, collaborative manner. High quality OSS products like...