(part of the DFG-funded project "Patents and innovation in the German states, 1843-1877")
The Consequences of Radical Patent-Regime Change
(with Felix Selgert)
State: Preparing for submission.
Presentations: CEPR Workshop Heidelberg, 2025; ASSA Virtual, 2022 (by co-author); University of York, 2021; EHA Virtual, 2020 (by co-author); EEA Virtual, 2020; VfS Leipzig, 2019; EHES Paris (by co-author), 2019; Munich Summer Institute, 2019; ZEW/MaCCI Conference Mannheim, 2019; BETA Workshop Strasbourg, 2019; GSWG Regensburg, 2019; University of Groningen, 2019; WEHC Boston, 2018; IP Day Boston University School of Law, 2018; Workshop "Business and the Law", University of Bayreuth, 2018; EHS Keele, 2018 (by co-author); University of Hohenheim, 2018; Workshop "Patent Law and Innovation", University of Bonn, 2018; University of Mannheim, 2017.
Awards: Best Paper Award Economic and Social History (GSWG Regensburg, 2019).
Abstract: We analyze the effect of patent-regime change on innovation by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment: the forced adoption of the Prussian patent system in territories annexed after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Compared to other German states, Prussia granted fewer patents because of a more rigorous technical examination and stricter novelty requirements. We use novel hand-collected data on patents and world's fair exhibits to test how the forced adoption of the more restrictive Prussian patent law affected innovation. More precisely, we use world’s fair exhibits as a proxy for non-patented innovation. First, we find that the forced adoption of the Prussian patent law caused a massive decline in patenting. Second, we find an increase in world’s fair exhibits per capita after the patent-regime change, suggesting that adopting the Prussian patent system was conducive to non-patented innovation. Finally, we show that increased technology diffusion is a plausible channel for the positive effect of patent-regime change on innovation.
The Inclusiveness of Patent Systems (paper on request)
(with Felix Selgert)
State: Preparing for submission.
Presentations: WEHC Paris, 2022 (by co-author); University of Münster, 2021; Baltic Connections Virtual, 2021; GSWG Virtual, 2021; ESSHC Virtual, 2021.
Abstract: We analyze the social background of German inventors between 1815 and 1877. Before the introduction of a nationwide German patent law in 1877, there were differences in patent laws. Using new data on the social background of patentees, we show that the design of the patent system affected its “inclusiveness”. The data include information on patents granted in Prussia and five medium-sized German states. The results suggest that systems with technical examinations and high fees were more likely to observe patentees from the upper-middle and upper classes, while registration systems with low fees attracted more inventors from lower classes.
Human Capital and Innovation During Prussia's Malthusian Transition (with Felix Selgert).
(part of the DFG-funded project "Lack of economic freedom and innovation: Patent activities in the "Third Reich” and in the GDR")
How the West was Settled. The Location Choice of East German Companies Migrating to West Germany after World War II
(with Jochen Streb)
Presentations: ZEW Conference on the Dynamics of Entrepreneurship Mannheim, 2025 (scheduled); EHES Hohenheim, 2025 (scheduled, by co-author); WEHC Lund, 2025; CEPR Workshop Heidelberg, 2025 (by co-author); WU Vienna, 2024; VfS Berlin, 2024; University of Halle, 2023 (by co-author); LSE, 2023 (by co-author); Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2013 (by co-author); GSWG Leipzig, 2023; University of Regensburg, 2023; Wirtschaftshistorischer Ausschuss des VfS, Bochum, 2022 (by co-author); University of Mannheim, 2022; HU Berlin, 2021 ; Baden-Württemberg Economic History Workshop Tübingen, 2021.
State: Preparing for submission.
Abstract: The division of Germany into a free-market West and a socialist East that followed the military defeat in spring 1945 induced thousands of East German companies to relocate to the West in the following years. This exogenous mass exodus allows us to identify the motives for the choice of firm location in a natural experiment. We test whether the East German firms were primarily attracted by existing West German agglomeration economies or rather sought new locations geographically close to their original homes, which allowed them to retain their access to pre-existing local networks. To test the determinants of the firms’ location choices, we use a newly constructed data set including information for over 4,200 relocated Eastern German firms, which we combine with county-level data on local economic activity and other socio-economic characteristics. By applying a mixed logit choice model, we find a negative effect of distance. Firms preferred places close to their original locations with market conditions they already knew. The fact that this negative distance effect is stronger for firms from original places close to the inner-German border strengthens our hypothesis that “home advantages” mattered. We also provide evidence for the attractiveness of agglomerations showing that firms favored places with high productivity and market potential. There are heterogeneous effects across industries: For companies in global market-oriented industries, the agglomeration effect is stronger and the location advantage smaller than for companies in industries with a more local customer or supplier base.
Female Inventorship in Authoritarian Regimes The Cases of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic
(with Finni Jo Erdmann, Sophia Rishyna, and Jochen Streb)
Presentations: EBHS York, 2024 (by co-author).
State: Revise & resubmit, Social Science History.
Based on two newly compiled patent databases, we investigate and discuss the role of female inventors in two authoritarian regimes: Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). We find that the women inventor rate was very low under the Nazi regime. Based on the sample of patents used in this paper, we estimate that female inventors accounted for less than two per cent of all patents in this period. This figure reflects the low women inventor rate in previous periods but may be also driven by various policy measures of the Nazi regime. In the GDR, the women inventor rate was even lower in the 1950s, but it increased to about 17 per cent in the 1980s. A plausible reason for this increase is the GDR’s women’s policy due to the general labor shortage, which, among other things, tried to integrate women into universities and R&D departments of state-
owned enterprises, thus promoting female inventorship .
(DFG reseach group "Conflict strategies in innovation markets (1850-1990)")
Patent Litigation in the German Empire
(with Felix Selgert and Jochen Streb)
Presentations: WEHC Lund 2025; ZEW/MaCCI Conference on the Economics of Innovation and Patenting, Mannheim, 2024; University of Mannheim, 2023; University of Oxford, 2023 (by co-author); GSWG Leipzig, 2023 (by co-author).
State: Preparing for submission.
Abstract: We provide an empirical analysis of patent litigation in the German Empire by using a new data set that includes detailed information on patent proceedings. Our data combine micro-level information on nullification decisions by the Imperial Patent Office and the court of appeal, the Imperial Court, with data on high-value patents. By using nullification decisions as a proxy for patent conflicts, we analyze the differences in the intensity of patent conflicts across industries. Our results reveal a significant heterogeneity. By introducing the new concept of technological concentration, we show that in industries with high technological concentration patent litigation was less frequent. We argue that, unlike small and medium-sized enterprises, innovative companies with market power had the option of resolving patent disputes outside the courts through cartel-like agreements such as patent pools.
The Origins and Persistence of Wealth (with Jean-Marie A. Meier; presentations: Conference "Reichtum – soziologische und historische Perspektiven", Köln, 2022; Wirtschaftshistorischer Ausschuss des VfS, 2021).