Does air quality affect inventor productivity? Evidence from the NOx budget program

Yue Luo, Yangyang Chen and Ji-Chai Lin

Journal of Corporate Finance, 2022, vol. 73, issue C

Abstract: Using the NOx budget program (NBP) as a quasi-natural experiment, we study how air quality affects the productivity of patent inventors. Motivated by previous studies linking air quality to people's risk-taking tendencies and cognitive abilities, we find that after the implementation of the NBP, inventors located in NBP participating states produce more patents and the quality of their patents increases. These inventors engage more in exploratory innovation and less in exploitative innovation, and they shift their strategies toward risky, high-value innovation. Our findings suggest that risk-taking and cognitive ability are the channels through which improved air quality enhances inventor productivity.

Keywords: Air quality; Inventor productivity; Innovation strategy; Innovation quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G39 G40 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:73:y:2022:i:c:s092911992200013x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2022.102170

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