I study how laws, regulators, and market competition affect firms’ incentives to invest in research and development, change course of their innovation strategies (e.g., cost-cutting vs. product development, defense-related innovation, or AI), and strategically disclose their inventions to the public. I am also interested in how institutions and their role in R&D drive individuals’ and firms’ incentives to participate in and contribute to technology standardization or form strategic alliances (and share information) with potential competitors. The disclosure in digital markets (e.g., user-data collection), the regulation of these markets and its tools (e.g., GDPR, EU AI Act, or state-level regulation in the U.S.), and firms' investment in cyber security complete my research program.

Publications (peer-reviewed)

Contact me for personal-use copies of my articles.

• Learning When to Quit: An Empirical Model of Experimentation in Standards Development
  American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 17(3), 2025, pp 1-27
  with Timothy Simcoe and Emanuele Tarantino
  
  • NBER Working Paper 24358, CEPR Discussion Paper DP12733
  • Replication package


• Representation is Not Sufficient for Selecting Gender Diversity
  Research Policy, 53(6), 2024, Article 104994
  with Justus Baron, Nicola Persico, Timothy Simcoe, and Emanuele Tarantino
  
  • Download: NBER, CEPR, SSRN, and ZEW (October 2023 version)
  • Nice summary by the Technology and Policy Research Initiative at Boston University.
  • "Do Diverse Hiring Committees Choose More Diverse Leaders?" (in KelloggInsight)
  • "ZEW Mannheim: Wie MINT-Berufe für Frauen attraktiv werden" (January 2, 2024, Mannheimer Morgen; German; paywall)


• The Effect of Patent Litigation Insurance: Theory and Evidence from NPEs
  Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 38(3), 2022 (November), pp 741-773
  with Christian Helmers and Brian J. Love
  • Download June 2021 version
  • Download November 2018 version (presenting a different modeling approach to litigation)
  • Featured on IAM (November 22, 2018): "IP risk management goes mainstream and some see big bucks ahead"
    
  • Bloomberg Law article (June 25, 2020): "IP Insurers See Their Time as Now With Covid-19 In Background"


• Markups for Consumers
  Journal of Economics and Statistics (Special Issue: Market Power and Concentration Developments), 241(5-6), 2021 (November), pp 701-734
  with Alex Kann and Ilona Tsanko
  
  • Replication files (on the ZBW Journal Data Archive)


• Expectations of Reciprocity when Competitors Share Information: Experimental Evidence
  Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 170, 2020 (February), pp 244-267
  with Alex Holcomb and Noah Myung
  (Online Appendix)


• Installment Contracts and Material Breach
  Supreme Court Economic Review, 26, 2018, pp 1-46 (lead article)
  


• Efficient Material Breach of Contract
  Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 33(3), 2017 (August), pp 507-540
  (Slides, Online Appendix)


• Adversarial Decision-Making: Choosing Between Models Constructed by Interested Parties
  Journal of Law and Economics, 59(3), 2016 (August), pp 527-548
  with Luke Froeb and Steven Tschantz
  (Slides, Online Appendix)


• Conversation With Secrets
  RAND Journal of Economics, 45(2), 2014 (Summer), pp 273-302
  with Emanuele Tarantino


• Patent Hold Up and Antitrust: How a Well-Intentioned Rule Could Retard Innovation
  Journal of Industrial Economics, 60(2), 2012 (June), pp 249-273
  with Luke Froeb and Greg Werden

Contributions to Edited Volumes and Special Issues

• Effective Regulation and Firm Compliance: The Case of German Privacy Policies
  In: Data Privacy Protection and the Conduct of Applied Research: Methods, Approaches and their Consequences, edited by Ruobin Gong, V. Joseph Hotz, and Ian M. Schmutte, University of Chicago Press, forthcoming
  with Jacopo Gambato and Julia Krämer
  • The working paper can be found on the NBER website


• Reproducibility in Management Science
  Management Science, 70(3), 2024 (March), pp 1343-2022
  Fišar, M., Greiner, B., Huber, C., Katok, E., Ozkes, A., and the Management Science Reproducibility Collaboration (Note: I am a contributor)
  
  • The working paper can be found at: https://osf.io/mydzv


• Technology Economics: Innovation, Licensing, and Antitrust
  In: Global Antitrust Institute Report on the Digital Economy, chapter 5, pp 192-219, November 2020
  with Greg Werden, Luke Froeb, and Steven Tschantz
  

Policy Reports

• Trusted Research and Innovation: How Knowledge Leakage Affects the Research & Innovation Ecosystem
  IRC Report No. 024, Innovation and Research Caucus, Oxford, UK
  with Nicola Searle and Maurizio Borghi
  
  • Coverage: Formation Consultancy (June 23, 2025)
  • Summary of our results on IAM Media (paywalled)


• Verbraucherpreisaufschläge in Deutschland
  Report for the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV), April 2021
  with Alexander Kann and Ilona Tsanko
  
  • Coverage: Spiegel (German), markenartikel (German), Neues Deutschland (German)
  • Summary of our results (in German), posted on the Inclusive Productivity Blog (by Bertelsmann Stiftung): "Wachsende Marktmacht in Deutschland: Schlecht für Produktivität und Verbraucher:innen"
  • For more information, in particular on sample construction and estimation details for price markups, see the background paper Markups for Consumers


• Price Markups, Innovation, and Productivity: Evidence from Germany
  Report for the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gütersloh, Germany, July 2020
  with Nadine Hahn, Michael Hellwig, Alexander Kann, Bettina Peters, and Ilona Tsanko
  
  • Summary of our results (in German), posted on the Ökonomenstimme.org Blog: "Marktmacht und Produktivität der Unternehmen in Deutschland"
  • Link to the video of the presentation of our results at the OECD Global Forum on Productivity (December 3, 2020)

Working Papers (under review)

• Regulatory Capacity in a Game of Asymmetric Regulation
  with Jacopo Gambato and Julia Krämer; latest version: October 2025
  
  • CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper 706/2025


• Hybrid Contracting in Repeated Interactions
  with Julian Klix and Dongsoo Shin; latest version: August 2025
  
  • CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper 695/2025


• Regulatory Compliance with Limited Enforceability: Evidence from Privacy Policies
  with Jacopo Gambato and Julia Krämer; latest version: July 2024
  • Find the paper on SSRN
  • Slides
  • 10-minute summary video, produced by Latest Thinking


• Do Judicial Assignments Matter? Evidence from Random Case Allocation
  with Christian Helmers and Brian J. Love; latest version: January 2024
  
  • Download: SSRN
  • Press coverage: New York Times (April 5, 2024; cited as "a 2024 study"), Texas Lawyer (April 30, 2024)


• Visibility of Technology and Cumulative Innovation: Evidence from Trade Secrets Laws
  with Imke Reimers; latest version: September 2024
  
  • Download at SSRN; Earlier version: CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper 119/2019
  • Slides

Other Working Papers

Contact me for the most recent version!

• Competition and the Strategic Disclosure of Innovation: Theory and Evidence from Patent Applications
  with David T. Angenendt; March 2025
  • CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper 664/2025


• User-Data Collection and Strategic Tracking Disclosure
  with Jacopo Gambato; latest version: September 2024


• Looking for Innovation Beyond the Patent System: Evidence from Research Disclosures
  with Alexander Kann; latest version: July 2024
  • CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper 656/2025


• Equilibrium Effects of the Availability of Injunctions in Standard-Essential Patent Licensing
  with Benno Buehler and Dominik Fischer; latest version: September 2023
  
  • Find the paper on SSRN


• The Rise of Process Claims: Evidence from a Century of U.S. Patents
  with W. Keith Robinson and Michael Seeligson; April 2022
  • Summary of our main findings
  • Find the paper on SSRN
  • Find the data on Zenodo
  • Check out our data page for more information


• Complexity, Standardization, and the Design of Loan Agreements
  with Malcolm Wardlaw; April 2017

Work in Progress

• Networks and Power: Gender Effects of Random Selection Into an Administrative Elite
• Do Commonly Held Firms Coordinate Their R&D? Evidence from Patents
• Mergers and the Direction of Corporate Innovation
• R&D Tax Credits and Directed Technological Change
• Green Innovation: The Trade Secrets Gap
• Commercial Motives for Standards Development: Evidence from Alice v. CLS Bank

Permanent Working Papers

• Separation of Legal Power: The Case of Antitrust (March 2011)
  with Andrea Günster
• Intrinsic Motivation, Discrimination and the Child Labor-Schooling Trade-Off (December 2006)

Last changed: October 3, 2025