Incentives and Innovation? R&D Management in Germany’s High-Tech Industries During the Second Industrial Revolution

The allocation of intellectual property rights between firms and employed researchers causes a principal-agent problem between the two parties. We investigate the working contracts of inventors employed by German chemical, pharmaceutical, and electrical engineering firms at the turn of the 20th century and show that some firms were aware of the principal-agent problem and offered performance-related compensation schemes to their scientists. However, neither a higher total compensation nor a higher share of variable compensation in total compensation is correlated with a higher innovative output. Thus, incentives techniques were already used during the early history of industrial research laboratories, but their impact on innovative output was unsystematic.Compensation packages; incentives; innovation; economic history; Germany, pre-1913

The design of licensing contracts: Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, and Electrical Engineering in Imperial Germany

We investigate a sample of 180 technology licensing contracts closed by German chemical, pharmaceutical, and electrical engineering companies between 1880 and 1913. Our empirical results suggest that strategic behaviour seems to be relevant for the design of licensing contracts, whereas inventor moral hazard and risk aversion of licensor or licensee seem to be irrelevant. Moreover, our results suggest that uncertainty regarding the profitability of licensed technology influenced the design of licensing contracts. More specifically, profit sharing agreements or producer milestones were typically included into licensing contracts.Economic History, Germany, pre-1913, Licensing contracts, Technology transfer

Cartels, managerial incentives, and productive efficiency in German coal mining, 1881-1913

In this paper, we evaluate the impact of cartelisation and managerial incentives on the productive efficiency of German coal mining corporations. We focus on coal mining in the Ruhr district, Germany’s main mining area. We use stochastic frontier analysis and an unbalanced dynamic panel data set for up to 28 firms for the years 1881-1913 to measure productive efficiency. We show that coal was mined with decreasing returns to scale. Moreover, it turns out that cartelisation did not affect productive efficiency. Controlling for corporate governance variables shows that stronger managerial incentives were significantly correlated with productive efficiency, whereas the debt-equity ratio did not influence it.Economic history; Germany pre-1913; Cartel; Productive efficiency; Corporate Governance

Incentives and innovation? R&D management in Germany's chemical and electrical engineering industries around 1900

The allocation of intellectual property rights between firms and employed researchers causes a principal-agent problem between the two parties. We investigate the working contracts of researchers employed by German chemical and electrical engineering firms at the turn of the 20th century and show that the firms were aware of the principal-agent problem and offered performance-related compensation schemes to their scientists. We show that past bonuses are positively correlated with current patenting, whereas past total income is negatively associated with current patenting. Thus, we discover a trade-off between level and structure of compensation on the one hand and patenting activity on the other.Compensation packages Incentives Innovation Economic history Germany Pre-1913