Female R&D Teams and Patents as Quality Signals in Innovative Firms

Pilar Beneito, Maria Engracia Rochina Barrachina and Amparo Sanchis-Llopis

No 2110, Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia

Abstract: Innovative firms use patents to signal the quality of their R&D teams in evaluation processes affected by asymmetric information. Examples of these processes occur when applying for finance from external sources or when searching for collaboration partners for innovation projects. In this paper we provide evidence that, in these cases, firms' external agents undervalue patents of female R&D teams as compared to patents of male R&D teams. We investigate this issue using data of Spanish innovating firms from PITEC, spanning 2005-2014, a panel database that follows the structure of the European Community Innovation Surveys (CIS). We interpret our results as consistent with an evaluation bias against female researchers, making them to be subject to a greater scrutiny as compared to their male counterparts, and thereby suggesting the existence of gender discrimination in R&D.

Keywords: female R&D teams; patents; asymmetric information; quality signals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C20 J16 O30 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eur, nep-gen, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-isf, nep-ppm, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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http://repecsrv.uv.es/paper/RePEc/pdf/eec_2110.pdf First version, 2110 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Female R&D teams and patents as quality signals in innovative firms (2023)
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