The paper provides an empirical analysis of the patenting activity of a sample of Western European manufacturing firms undergoing a buyout between 1998 and 2004. A panel data design is used to test whether the characteristics of the deal and of private equity (PE) firms can affect acquired...

This study investigates the effects of buyout deals on the ex-post performance of target companies. The analysis is based on a sample of 241 private-to-private buyouts involving European companies between 1997 and 2004 and a control sample of non-buyouts selected through a propensity score...

The impact of the geographical origin of patents on the probability of an opposition being filed and a patent being revoked has been examined in this paper, after accounting for patent value indicators and industry specificities. The study is based on a dataset of approximately 450,000 EPO...

We analyze a sample of European high-tech entrepreneurial firms that received bank venture capital (BVC) financing between 1994 and 2004. We employ a “two-step” matching procedure in order to build a control group composed of (1) comparable firms that received venture capital financing from...

This paper investigates the relationship between finance and R&D for a panel of more than 1000 Italian manufacturing firms. While Italian firms obtain a significant share of their financing from debt, the results from a unique survey show that firms use virtually no debt to finance R&D. Because...

The paper investigates to what extent the convergence of banks over risk-adjusted capital standards set by the new Basel Capital Accord may affect the way in which they screen innovative firms. It also gives an overview of the existing forms of credit support to R&D activities. The study is...

Informational frictions between borrowers and lenders are particularly acute for innovative firms undertaking high-risk projects. As a consequence, banks may end up denying credit to them. However, the literature on relationship finance predicts that a closer relationship between credit...

Purpose – This paper attempts to interpret Foresight in the light of the Triple Helix concept. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores, in the light of the Triple Helix framework, the architecture of a Technology Foresight project which was carried out in Piemonte (Italy) in 2006,...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine, for a sample of ten corporations in three industries (i.e. automotive suppliers, semiconductors, and computer networks), the different strategies that firms undertake when acquiring patent-protected technologies. In particular, the authors analyze...