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Dennis Hutschenreiter, PhD

Dennis Hutschenreiter, PhD
Current Position

since 6/22

Economist in the Department of Financial Markets

Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association

Research Interests
  • financial markets and the real economy
  • innovation and technology policy
  • corporate governance

Dennis Hutschenreiter joined the Department of Financial Markets in June 2022. His research focuses on the impact of financial markets on the real economy. In particular, he explores the effect of institutional investors on managerial decision-making regarding innovation and the market for technology.

Dennis Hutschenreiter received his bachelor's and his master's degree from University of Cologne and his PhD degree from Autonomous University of Barcelona and Barcelona School of Economics.

Your contact

Dennis Hutschenreiter, PhD
Dennis Hutschenreiter, PhD
- Department Financial Markets
Send Message +49 345 7753-839

Publications

Citations
15

Working Papers

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Common Ownership, Tacit Know-How, and the Market for Technology

Dennis Hutschenreiter

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 3, 2026

Abstract

Firms increasingly rely on markets for technology to acquire innovations developed outside their boundaries, yet acquiring intellectual property rights alone often does not guarantee successful implementation. Many technologies depend on tacit know-how that must be supplied by the provider after the transaction is completed. This paper examines whether common ownership between a technology provider and a potential adopter mitigates this implementation problem. I develop a model in which overlapping institutional investors cause the provider to partially internalize the adopter’s gains from successful implementation, strengthening incentives to transfer tacit know-how. This mechanism operates only when know-how is unverifiable – absent this friction, common ownership leaves matching and outcomes unchanged. Under moral hazard, the model predicts that common ownership increases the likelihood of technology transfer to a given adopter, that this effect is stronger when tacit know-how is more important, and that common ownership improves post-transfer outcomes conditional on adoption. I test these predictions using U.S. patent reassignments between publicly traded firms. Using within-deal variation across competing potential adopters and plausibly exogenous variation from passive index-fund holdings, I show that common ownership increases the likelihood that a firm acquires a technology, particularly when the transferred bundle is more tacit. Common ownership predicts stronger subsequent innovation and higher future firm value, especially when ownership overlap is concentrated among investors with stronger incentives to monitor the provider. These findings show how ownership structure shapes interfirm technology transfer by affecting not only who acquires a technology, but also how much value is created.

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From Rivals to Allies? CEO Connections in an Era of Common Ownership

Dennis Hutschenreiter Qianshuo Liu

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 7, 2025

Abstract

Institutional common ownership of firm pairs in the same industry increases the likelihood of a preexisting social connection among their CEOs. We establish this relationship using a quasi-natural experiment that exploits institutional mergers combined with firms’ hiring events and detailed information on CEO biographies. In addition, for peer firms, gaining a CEO connection from a hiring firm’s CEO appointment correlates with higher returns on assets, stock market returns, and decreasing product similarity between companies. We find evidence consistent with common owners allocating CEO connections to shape managerial decisionmaking and increase portfolio firms’ performance.

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From Shares to Machines: How Common Ownership Drives Automation

Joseph Emmens Dennis Hutschenreiter Stefano Manfredonia Felix Noth Tommaso Santini

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 23, 2024

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