Felix Poege, Postdoctoral Associate, Technology and Policy Research Initiative, Boston University
The relationship between competition and innovation is difficult to disentangle, as exogenous variation in market structure is rare. The 1952 breakup of Germany’s leading chemical company, IG Farben, represents such a disruption. After the Second World War, the Allies occupying Germany imposed the breakup because of IG Farben’s importance for the German war economy instead of standard antitrust concerns. In technology areas where the breakup reduced concentration, patenting increased strongly, driven by domestic firms unrelated to IG Farben. An analysis of patent texts shows that an increased propensity to patent does not drive the effect. Descriptively, IG Farben’s successors increased their patenting activities as well, and their patenting specialised relative to the pre-breakup period. The results are consistent with a breakup-induced innovation increase by the IG Farben successors, which then spilled over to the wider chemical industry.
Speaker bio
Felix is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Technology and Policy Research Initiative at Boston University. Previously, he was a junior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, Germany. He is also an IZA affiliate.
His research focuses on the innovation strategy of firms under competition. With this, he studies topics in strategic management and the economics of innovation, interlinked with topics in industrial organisation, science, and human capital.
For more information, please contact Emily Brown.
Event timings
Date:
12 October 2022
Start Time:
15:00
End Time:
16:00