Research

My current research revolves around a few questions.

1. How do markets for technology function? Under what conditions are they more likely to arise and grow?

Marco Giarratana and I are working on a paper where we argue, and show empirically, that firms are more likely to license when their technologies are general-purpose and downstream product markets are fragmented.

2. What are the determinants of the private value of patented inventions? 

I am working on this question with Dietmar Harhoff and Bart Verspagen.

3. What determines the performance of innovation strategies?

I think that an important question is the comparative effectiveness of innovation strategies based on parallel independent research projects vs. fewer projects of larger scale. With Raffaele Conti and Myriam Mariani, I am working on theoretical and empirical analyses that explore the conditions under which the order statistics effects associated with a higher number of independent trials can give rise to a greater innovation productivity. This can have broad implications. For example, it can help to understand when many independent entrepreneurial companies produce more innovations than fewer larger scale projects in a bigger firm, or more generally when to select research projects ex-ante vs. ex-post (i.e.., before vs. after trying them.)

4. How can firms best manage their human capital?

Claudio Panico is teaching me the importance of control rights as a means of compensating knowledge workers. Claudio's logic is that when the firms offer decision rights to these workers, they enjoy private benefits. Even if this is costly, the firm can use the allocation of decision rights to screen workers of different qualities or more generally to provide them with incentives -- especially when performance-based incentives are not possible because knowledge outputs are hard to pin down. We are working on a few papers.

PhDs

    I have benefitted significantly from interactions with several PhD students.

    Allya Koesoema, Bocconi, expected graduation 2012

    Gili Greenberg, Bocconi, expected graduation 2011, starting June 2011 OECD, Paris

    Raffaele Conti, Bocconi, graduated 2011, starting September 2011 as Assistant Professor, Catolica-Lisbon

    Elena Novelli, Bocconi, graduated 2010, Lecturer, University of Bath 

    Marco Corsino, Sant'Anna, graduated 2007, Lecturer, University of Rimini

    Maria Carmela Passarelli, Sant'Anna, graduated 2007, Basilicata Innovazione

    Francesco Rullani, Sant'Anna, graduated 2007, Assistant Professor, Luiss, Rome

    Grid Thoma, Sant'Anna, graduated 2007, Lecturer, University of Camerino

    Alessandra Luzzi, graduated 2005, Assistant Professor, Carlos III, Madrid

    Laura Magazzini, graduated 2005, Lecturer, University of Verona (main advisor: Fabio Pammolli)

    Marco Giarratana, Sant'Anna, graduated 2003, Associate Professor, Carlos III, Madrid

    Fabrizio Cesaroni, Sant'Anna, graduated 2002, Assistant Professor, Carlos III, Madrid