Unfortunately, the degree programs at our school don't necessarily put emphasis on quantitative education, even though quantitative skills are more and more required and most certainly an asset for many of the career paths of ambitious business school graduates. In economics research, they are absolutely unavoidable.

I am well aware of the background of most of our students, and yet, I absolutely believe that the time available to complete the thesis work is sufficient to familiarize oneself with the necessary approaches and tools. For the most part, this entails familiarizing yourself with a coding language, such as Python's data analysis packages or R, and obtaining some fundamental knowledge about which statistical analyses could be appropriate and how to perform them. These tasks will be part of your thesis work, and it is explicitly understood and expected that you will need to spend some of the available time on them.

Apart from acquiring a valuable hard skill with enormous potential for non-academic application, there are a couple of other points on the plus side here: 

• I will ensure that all data required to realize each topic is, in fact, available to the student. While you will have to spend some time assembling the final dataset for your analysis, getting stuck due to the unavailability of a crucial resource is very unlikely.

• You can expect that the research questions are highly relevant, certainly from an academic viewpoint, most often also from a "practical" one.

• I will be able and happy to provide close supervision, not least because I'll be honestly curious about the results you will obtain.

While I'm personally interested in the result of each of the questions as stated below, I'm happy to discuss and consider your own ideas for defining and refining the research question and the approach. You will notice a certain emphasis on data from and settings in the United States, which is partly due to the prominence that the US plays in academic publishing. Depending on your interests and on data availability, we can certainly try to consider a different geographical focus.

Exploring the Price of Innovation: A Quantitative Analysis of Firms' Willingness to Pay for Patent Protection

Legal protection for inventions is an important aspect of firms’ innovation strategies, but obtaining a patent comes with costs, such as fees charged by lawyers and patent offices. These costs may deter some firms from applying for patents, particularly smaller ones with tighter financial constraints. This project examines how the cost of patent applications affects firms’ decisions to seek patent protection, drawing on a specific policy at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that ties fee levels to firm size.

The USPTO charges reduced fees to firms below a certain size threshold, while those above the threshold pay full fees. This policy creates a natural experiment for identifying causal effects, allowing for a regression discontinuity design to compare the patenting behavior of firms just above and below the threshold. Using publicly available patent data and firm-level employment information from ORBIS or Compustat, this study aims to quantify the sensitivity of patenting activity to application costs.

In addition to assessing the main relationship between fees and patenting, the project offers opportunities to consider issues such as strategic firm behavior (e.g., firms restructuring or underreporting to qualify for lower fees) and data quality concerns. By applying econometric tools to real-world policy variation, this research sheds light on how financial constraints influence firms’ approach to intellectual property protection and innovation. This study can contribute to our understanding of the implications of patenting costs for innovation and offers insights that are valuable for both policymakers and business leaders.

Suggested references:
de Rassenfosse & Jaffe (2025) [who look at the same situation but exploit fee changes over time];
de Rassenfosse & van Pottelsberghe (2012, 2015);
van Pottelsberghe & Mejer (2010)

Rhythms of Innovation: Decoding the Seasonality of Patent Filings and Its Implications

Patent filings at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) show pronounced spikes at the close of each calendar quarter. Practitioners have remarked on the pattern (see the PatentlyO blog post), yet its causes and consequences remain poorly documented. This project investigates both the drivers of these filing cycles and their implications for innovation and intellectual-property management. 

The following research questions outline possible directions for investigation:

1. Does the seasonality of patent filings vary between large "BigLaw" firms and smaller law practices? This analysis could test the hypothesis that year-end bonus incentives that often prevail in large firms amplify seasonal filing patterns.

2. Using data on disambiguated patent attorneys, this study could estimate the importance of bonus-driven incentives. Are firms or attorney groups with stronger seasonal filing patterns more likely to operate in environments where bonuses play a critical role in driving work cycles?

3. Do larger corporations, with formal quarterly review processes, display more pronounced seasonality in their patent filings compared to smaller firms? This question explores how organizational structures and planning cycles influence patent filing behavior.

4. How do seasonal filing peaks affect patent quality or outcomes? This thesis project asks whether patents filed during peak weeks differ in grant probability or citation performance, which would reveal whether timing affects application quality or strategic positioning.

Irrespective of the precise focus, the thesis will rely on micro-econometric techniques that merge USPTO filings with firm-level and related datasets, interpreted through the literature on patent law, organisational incentives, and innovation strategy. The findings should help legal practitioners, firms, and policymakers understand how incentive schemes shape both the timing and the quality of patenting activity. 

Suggested references:
Frakes, M., & Wasserman, M. (NBER Working Paper): Examines how patent examination outcomes vary with submission volumes.
Kim, J., & Valentine, K. (Working Paper): Investigates seasonality in patent sales and provides a complementary perspective on seasonal trends in intellectual property markets.

Banking on Innovation: Unveiling the Drivers Behind the Surge in Patent Filings by Banks

Patent activity in commercial banking has risen sharply after decades of near indifference to intellectual property. Large institutions, such as Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, now seek protection for new banking technologies, financial products, and business methods. This shift raises several avenues for research that could be treated in separate theses. 

1. By comparing the volume, scope, and downstream influence of banking patents with those in technology or pharmaceuticals, one can establish how far banks have converged on the norms of patent-intensive sectors. This descriptive analysis could be especially suitable for a Bachelor's thesis.

2. The America Invents Act of 2011, which altered patentability standards and litigation rules, may have lowered entry barriers and changed the expected value of patents for financial firms. Did it have an impact on banks' patenting incentives? 

3. What is the origin of banks' patents? Do they originate from in-house R&D, post-grant acquisitions, or collaborative ventures? And how do these origins map onto competitive motives and geographic knowledge flows? If patents are externally acquired, was this done to gain a competitive advantage, enter new market segments, or strengthen their defensive patent strategies? Another approach could involve examining sectoral or geographic patterns in the origins of banks' patents to study knowledge flows in the financial industry.

4. Another topic could focus on patents that cover cryptocurrency or blockchain applications, which banks have filed despite their public criticism or skepticism towards these technologies. One thesis could investigate the strategic considerations driving this paradoxical behavior. For instance, do such patenting activities represent a hedging strategy against potential shifts in client preferences or technological advancements? Are these patents aimed at developing new products, preventing competitors from gaining a strong market position, or establishing leadership in fintech innovation?

All of these questions lend themselves to a mixed-methods approach that combines micro-econometric analysis of USPTO data, qualitative case studies of the most active banks, and close reading of statutory and regulatory documents. Such work would help policymakers and practitioners understand the strategic uses of intellectual property in financial services and would extend the innovation literature into a sector that has only recently embraced patenting.

Suggested references:
Carletti, Claessens, Fatás & Vives (2020) The Bank Business Model in the Post-Covid-19 World. CEPR Press.
Hall et al. (2009) Financial patenting in Europe
Kowalewski & Pisany (2023) Banks' Patenting as an Answer to Emerging Fintech and Bigtech Competition
Lerner et al. (2024) Financial Innovation in the Twenty-First Century

Time is of the Essence: Analyzing the Impact of Funding Duration on Scientific Research Quality

This thesis examines whether the length of research grants affects project quality. Drawing on quantitative data, it links grant duration to innovation indicators, publication records, and other deliverables. Econometric estimates will clarify how grant length shapes these outcomes and what this implies for resource allocation in applied economics and strategic management.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)—the United Kingdom’s principal science-funding agency and one of the largest in Europe—provides the empirical basis. Its "Gateway to Research" database records grant amounts, durations, and outputs for publicly funded projects. These records allow a systematic test of how funding horizons influence subsequent project performance and offer evidence to guide grant-making policy.

Suggested references:
Block & Sørensen (2015) The size of research funding: Trends and implications
Heyard & Hottenrott (2021) The value of research funding for knowledge creation and dissemination: A study of SNSF Research Grants

Innovation Across Borders: A Cross-Country Analysis of Novel R&D

This project studies the share of R&D that yields genuinely new-to-industry (radical) innovations across industries and countries. This thesis project involves collecting and analyzing data from innovation surveys (topic 1) and patent databases (topic 2) to gauge how national innovation systems and policy environments shape the production of novel outcomes.

A first thesis project will draw on Eurostat’s Community Innovation Survey to compare the turnover generated by new-to-market and new-to-firm products and contextualize these figures within each country’s sectoral output and overall R&D effort. An alternative to using CIS data, which is challenging to obtain access to for a thesis project, would be to use indicators of invention novelty entirely based on patent data.

A second thesis will relate the national share of new-to-industry R&D to the incidence of triadic patent families, testing whether economies that earn a larger fraction of revenue from breakthrough products also seek broader patent protection. Econometric models, with controls for income level, industrial structure, and R&D intensity, will assess the degree to which commercial returns and technological priorities align across countries.

Suggested references:

Angenendt, Bokhari, Mariuzzo, & Zhang (2024) A comment on Sampson (2023): Work on this article provides the motivation for this thesis topic. Here, we suggest categorizing a country's innovations into three distinct categories based on their commercial and technological significance. This classification includes (1) commercially important innovations that warrant triadic patent filings, (2) novel patentable innovations with lesser commercial promise, and (3) imitative innovations that represent technological diffusion or catch-up. The questions left unanswered are whether countries differ significantly in the relative size of these categories, and if there is significant correlation with the number of certain patent applications and aggregate R&D statistics.

Information on the Community Innovation Survey is available here. Access is subject to application and approval, which must be completed before this topic can be worked on.

Evangelista & Mastrostefano (2006) Firm Size, Sectors and Countries as Sources of Variety in Innovation: One of the very few studies looking at cross-country variation, but regarding the share of new-to-the-market innovators among all firms, not the share among all innovators which would be relevant for the present topic.

TBA (please reach out already if this sounds interesting!)

TBA (please reach out already if this sounds interesting!)

TBA (please reach out already if this sounds interesting!)

Regulatory Chains: Do Regulations Stifle Industry Innovation?

This research examines the relationship between the degree of industry regulation and the level of innovation within those industries. The hypothesis is that heavy regulation may restrict innovation by increasing the cost of entry and compliance, thereby limiting resources available for innovative activities by entrants as well as the incentive to innovate by incumbents. Conversely, certain regulations could potentially stimulate innovation by setting standards that require new technologies or processes to meet these new challenges. 

The main part of the thesis will use QuantGov data to measure regulatory density and complexity across industries and correlate these measures with indicators of innovation such as patent filings, R&D expenditure, and technological advancements reported in industry surveys. For a Master's thesis, the estimation of causal effects could be attempted.

This thesis project also holds the potential for selecting specific industries known for heavy regulation, such as pharmaceuticals, energy, or telecommunications, to perform detailed case studies that explore the impacts of regulation on innovation in greater detail. 

This thesis contributes to the understanding of how regulatory frameworks can influence economic and technological development within industries. It could inform policymakers regarding the design of regulations that support innovation and economic growth while still achieving regulatory goals. 

Suggested references:
Aghion et al. (2023) The Impact of Regulation on Innovation
Breuer et al. (2019) Reporting Regulation and Corporate Innovation
Quignon (2022) Market Regulation and Innovation: Direct and Indirect Effects

Guarding the Gates: How Domestic Regulations Influence Foreign Market Entry 

This thesis project investigates whether industry-specific regulations serve as a strategic instrument to shield domestic markets from foreign competition. By employing quantitative analysis of data from QuantGov, a platform that tracks regulatory changes and trends for the US and a few other countries, this thesis will analyze the correlation between the density and complexity of regulations in specific industries and the entry of foreign firms. This involves comparing regulatory changes with foreign direct investment flows, import penetration, and the presence of foreign firms in domestic markets based on trade and economic data from sources like the World Bank, WTO, and national trade databases. For a Master's dissertation, a causal analysis could be attempted.

Partly based on student interest, the thesis may also focus on a a single high-profile industry known for significant regulatory oversight, such as telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, or agriculture. These will allow exploring instances where regulatory changes coincided with strategic economic events or shifts in international trade policies.

A separate thesis project could assess the economic impact of these regulatory strategies on domestic markets, foreign competitors, and consumers. This includes assessing changes in prices, market shares, and consumer choices, which would require additional data acquisition work.

This thesis project not only contributes to the literature on economic policy, international trade, and regulatory economics, but also engages with broader current debates about globalization, sovereignty, and market regulation. The findings could potentially inform more balanced approaches to trade and regulation that consider both domestic economic objectives and international trade obligations.

Suggested references:
Aktas et al. (2007) Is European M&A Regulation Protectionist?
Gulotti (2020) Narrowing the Channel: The Politics of Regulatory Protection in International Trade
Gründler & Hillman (2021) Ambiguous protection

Decoding Innovation: Semantic Analysis of Open-Ended Responses in the World Bank's Enterprise Survey

This thesis aims to quantitatively investigate the qualitative dimensions of innovation as described by responding businesses in the World Bank's Enterprise Survey. Recently, this survey introduced open-ended questions that prompt respondents who report innovations to describe how these new or improved products or processes differ from their previous operations. These questions provide a rich textual dataset that allows a deeper exploration of the nature of innovation across different national and business contexts. 

In 2020, researchers associated with the World Bank used these data to examine how the mere presence of these open-ended questions affected survey responses about innovation activity without delving into the specific content of responses. This thesis proposes to extend this research by applying text analysis techniques to systematically analyze the content of these open-ended responses. The focus will be on assessing the descriptions of innovation to uncover nuanced meanings and implications of "innovation" across various industries and firm sizes. 

I am open to student suggestions regarding which analyses to perform. I am loosely aware of computer science and engineering efforts to apply semantic analysis to patent data to assess the novelty of the underlying innovations or to identify the scope for novel innovations. In any case, this project can make both a significant thematic contribution by providing a clearer picture of what constitutes innovation in different contexts and a methodological contribution in interpreting responses from innovation surveys.

Suggested references:
Ciera & Muzi (2020) Measuring innovation using firm-level surveys: Evidence from developing countries.

Literature on text analysis of open-ended survey responses, e.g., Ferrario & Stantcheva (2022) Eliciting People's First-Order Concerns: Text Analysis of Open-Ended Survey Questions; Chai (2019) Text Mining in Survey Data

TBA (please reach out if this sounds interesting!)

TBA (please reach out if this sounds interesting!) A project for a student specializing in Computer Science and interested in an application of natural language processing.

TBA (please reach out if this sounds interesting!) A project for a student specializing in Computer Science and interested in an application of natural language processing.