Program Results

Introduction to the event

1. In the paper “Valuation of New Trademarks” accepted at Management Science, we find that firms launching more new products (measured by the number of new trademarks) provide significantly higher stock returns in the future. Firms launching more new products are more profitable; however, such profitability is underestimated by stock analysts. We conclude that stock investors underestimate the value of new trademarks due to lack of attention and/or limited information processing ability.

2. In the paper “Benchmarking U.S. University Patent Value and Commercialization Efforts: A New Approach” accepted at Research Policy, we propose a new approach to benchmarking university patents and commercialization performance based on comparative corporate patent value. Our procedure involves matching university patents to patents granted to public corporations with similar patent characteristics to estimate the “potential value” of these university patents by stock market reactions to matched corporate patent grants. These estimated values of university patents can significantly explain the technology-level licensing data from a leading US research university and the annual licensing income of the Association of University Technology Managers’ (AUTM). We also investigate the correlates of university-level potential patent value and suggest avenues for future research.

3. In “The Oscar Goes to…: High-tech Firms’ Acquisitions in Response to Rivals’ Technology Breakthroughs” accepted at Research Policy, we examine how firms react to their competitors’ highly publicized technology breakthroughs measured by the renowned R&D 100 Award. We find that a firm’s propensity to acquire another firm significantly increases after its competitors win these awards. Such award-driven acquisitiveness is more pronounced among firms with more confident CEOs or in industries with a shorter technology lifecycle and a higher R&D intensity. Moreover, the acquirers with rivals winning awards pursue innovative targets whose products overlap with those rivals, confirming these acquirers’ catch-up purpose.

4. In the paper “More Cash, Less Innovation: The Effect of the American Jobs Creation Act on Patent Value” accepted at Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, we find that firms can become less innovative following a sudden cash “inflow.” Specifically, multinational firms that were eligible to repatriate (and indeed repatriated) cash to the U.S. under the American Jobs Creation Act generate less valuable patents than otherwise similar firms. They also explore more. This effect only exists among firms in less competitive industries, firms with lower institutional ownership, and firms with overconfident CEOs. Our evidence suggests that, without appropriate governance, a cash windfall may lead managers to engage in riskier innovation strategy which can destroy value.

7th Taiwan Symposium on Innovation Economics and Entrepreneurship: Keynote speaker: Steven White (Tsinghua U.) on Dec. 30, 2019

Brownbag on Oct. 17, 2019

https://vimeo.com/401318902

Interview about “The Real Effect of Smoking Bans: Evidence from Corporate Innovation” 

This video clip summarizes an interview on a paper “The Real Effect of Smoking Bans: Evidence from Corporate Innovation” that is published at Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.