Time：2023. 12. 12（Tuesday）10: 00-11:00
Venue：Building 2, Room 220, Songjiang Campus
Speaker：SISU SBM Professor Zhang Jian
Theme：Terrorism and Corporate Innovation: Evidence from a Cross-country Study
Abstract:
This study examines the impact of terrorism on corporate innovation among 94 countries worldwide. To establish causality, we adopt terrorist attacks as an exogenous shock to safety uncertainty. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we present evidence that firms near terrorist attacks generate worse innovation outcomes in terms of patent counts and citations. Moreover, we find that safety uncertainty drives firms to lose valuable inventors and lowers inventors’ productivity. Specifically, we show that inventors are more likely to move to safer cities in response to safety uncertainty. Firms also tend to adjust their business strategies to more conventional business when facing safety uncertainty. Finally, we find that the effect of safety uncertainty is more significant in a country with characteristics of individualism, a low tolerance for uncertainty, short-term orientation, and high censorship. Overall, our paper provides evidence about the impact of safety uncertainty on the allocation of human capital across countries.
Speaker
Zhang Jian, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor. Dr. in Business Administration from Temple University in the United States, Director of the Department of Financial Technology and Corporate Finance, and recipient of the Shanghai Talent Program. He has been committed to empirical research in corporate finance and has achieved a series of important research results. Hosted the National Natural Science Foundation of China's general projects, youth projects, as well as the Ministry of Education's humanities and social science youth projects, and obtained approval from provincial and ministerial level leaders; Published over 20 high-level papers in journals such as Management Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Corporate Finance. Served as the Deputy Editor in Chief of Economic Analysis and Policy Journal, Editorial Board Member of Financial Innovation Journal, and Youth Editorial Board Member of China Finance Review International.
