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The effects of terrorist attacks on inventor productivity and mobility
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

The effects of terrorist attacks on inventor productivity and mobility

Eliezer M. Fich, Tung Nguyen and Dimitris Petmezas
Research policy, v 52(1), 104655
Jan 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104655
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104655View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Citations Inventions Inventor mobility Inventor productivity Patents Terrorism
We investigate the impact of deadly terrorist attacks on inventor productivity and mobility in the U.S. During the five-year window after such events, nearby firms generate fewer and less impactful inventions. Moreover, their inventors typically exhibit a post-attack decline in their patent production, unless they move to a distant company (which some tend to do after an attack). Firms' financial constraints and inventor talent appear to provide channels underlying our productivity and mobility findings, respectively. These results provide novel insights about the impact of shocks that distort the invention process and promote the mobility and reallocation of inventors among firms. •This paper shows that terrorist attacks uniquely affect the invention process.•Firms near terrorist strikes exhibit a large decrease in invention productivity.•Financially constrained firms suffer a more acute drop in invention productivity.•Terrorism promotes the mobility and reallocation of inventors among firms.•Superior inventors are better able to move to firms far from the terrorism scenes.

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10 citations in Web of Science
5 citations in Scopus

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Management
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