Download This PaperPolitical Sentiment and Innovation: Evidence from Patenters
Review of Financial Studies (accepted)
63 Pages Posted: 4 Aug 2022 Last revised: 10 Oct 2024
There are 2 versions of this paper
Political Sentiment and Innovation: Evidence from Patenters
Review of Financial Studies (accepted)
Number of pages: 63
Posted: 04 Aug 2022
Last Revised: 10 Oct 2024
You are currently viewing this paper
Downloads
410
Political Sentiment and Innovation: Evidence from Patenters
NBER Working Paper No. w31619
Number of pages: 74
Posted: 30 Aug 2023
Downloads
11
Date Written: September 15, 2024
Abstract
We document political sentiment effects on U.S. inventors. Democratic inventors are more likely to patent (relative to Republicans) after the 2008 election of Obama but less likely after the 2016 election of Trump. These effects are at least twice as strong among politically active Democrats and are present even within firms and within firm x technology. We also show that partisans tend to cluster in technologies (e.g., Democrats in Biotechnology and Republicans in Weapons), so that sentiment effects aggregate up to more patents in the technologies dominated by the winning party.
Keywords: Patents, Partisanship, Productivity
JEL Classification: O31, J24, M5, D72
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Engelberg, Joseph and Lu, Runjing and Mullins, William and Townsend, Richard, Political Sentiment and Innovation: Evidence from Patenters (September 15, 2024). Review of Financial Studies (accepted), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4176649 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4176649
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Feedback
Feedback to SSRN