Disasters and Innovation: Firm-Level Evidence from China

Alessandro Giacardi, Mathilde Maurel () and Thomas Pernet ()
Additional contact information
Mathilde Maurel: Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne et CNRS, https://cv.hal.science/mathilde-maurel
Thomas Pernet: Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne

Abstract: When do natural and climate-driven disasters trigger firm innovation, and when do they hinder it? Using a novel panel linking geocoded disaster records to patent filings and financial accounts for 4,540 Chinese manufacturing firms over 1998-2007, we estimate staggered difference-in-differences models with Poisson fixed effects and show that the answer depends critically on internal financing capacity. Disaster exposure raises patenting by 18.6 percent (s.e. = 0.085) on average, and by 14.5 percent (s.e. = 0.079) conditional on firm-level output, employment, and asset tangibility. These aggregate effects mask sharp heterogeneity: large firms increase patenting by 26-30 percent, while state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and small private firms show no significant response. We trace this pattern directly to internal liquidity. High-cashflow firms drive the entire aggregate effect, while industrylevel financial dependence and state-bank exposure show no significant differentiation. Provincial credit availability amplifies the response for firms that already possess internal resources, but does not compensate for their absence. Disasters can trigger technological upgrading, but only among firms with the financial capacity to act on the opportunity

Keywords: China; Firm Innovation; Patents; Disasters; Staggered DiD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C54 O31 O32 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2026-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-05789040 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mse:cesdoc:26009

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucie Label ().