We show that the acquisition of a startup inventor's first patent has a negative effect on the subsequent productivity of the patent's inventor, leading to 6.7 fewer patents being granted to the inventor over five years. This effect is not due to the inventor focusing on high-quality...

The working paper examines the role and development of the Central and Eastern European venture capital sector in the five years between 2016 and 2020. This period includes both the end of the recovery after the economic crisis in 2008 and the downturn due to the coronavirus crisis in 2019. A...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups which serves as a foundation for the analysis of acquisition policy. We show that prohibiting acquisitions has a weakly negative innovation effect. We provide conditions determining the size of the...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups which serves as a foundation for the analysis of acquisition policy. We show that prohibiting acquisitions has a weakly negative innovation effect. We provide conditions determining the size of the...

This paper investigates the effects of acquisitions by “big techs” on venture capital (VC) funding for start-up companies. Because of the strong association between VC investment and innovation, this approach also sheds light on the repercussions of big tech start-up acquisitions on...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups. We apply this theory to identify the effects of prohibiting start-up acquisitions. We differentiate between killer acquisitions (when the incumbent does not commercialize the acquired start-up's...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups. We show that prohibiting killer acquisitions strictly reduces the variety of innovation projects. By contrast, we find that prohibiting other acquisitions only has a weakly negative innovation...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups. We apply this theory to identify the effects of prohibiting start-up acquisitions. We differentiate between killer acquisitions (when the incumbent does not commercialize the acquired start-up's...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups. We show that prohibiting killer acquisitions strictly reduces the variety of innovation projects. By contrast, we find that prohibiting other acquisitions only has a weakly negative innovation...

We propose a novel mechanism through which established firms contribute to the startup ecosystem: the allocation of R&D tax credits to startups via the M&A channel. We show that when established firms become eligible for R&D tax credits, they increase their R&D and M&A activity. In particular,...