Research
Working Papers:
Measuring Manufacturing and Process Innovation, Application to Productivity and Growth (Revising for JFE)
(with Elvira Sojli and Wing Wah Tham)
We propose new time-varying measures of advanced manufacturing and process innovations based on patent invention claims and titles from 1850 to 2019 across 51 countries. Using this measure, we provide evidence that these innovations are important for firm and aggregate economic growth through technological spillover to product innovations and increased profitability. We find that patents with advanced processes have higher forward citations and economic value than product patents of the same technology class and cohort. Firms with higher quality process innovation are associated with higher profits, sales, capital, employment, and total factor productivity in the short run, while product innovation plays a larger role in the longer run. At the aggregate level, both advanced manufacturing and product innovations are positively related to US economic growth. In cross-country analysis, we find that product innovation is more important than process innovation for emerging countries with low labor costs for growth convergence towards the US economy, but the opposite holds for productivity.
Conferences
AEA (American Economic Association), 2023 AIEA-NBER Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2022, ABFER (Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research) 2022, CEPR (Centre for Economic Policy Research) Rising Asia 2022, EARIE (European Association for Research in Industrial Economics) 2022, SEM (The Society for Economic Measurement) 2022, RMI (Research Management Institute) 2022, SETA (Symposium on Econometric Theory and Applications) 2022, AFBC 2022, FRIN Corporate Finance 2022, FMCG (Financial Market and Corporate Governance), 2022 Asian Innovation Economics Conference 2021 (invitation-only), Business Financing and Banking Research Group Annual Workshop 2021 (invitation-only), Macroeconomics Reading Group Workshop 2021 (invitation-only)
Is ESG a Management Style?
(with Tony Cai, Jason Zein and Hao Zhang)
This paper provides evidence that managerial styles, represented by manager fixed effects and working experience in the non-profit sector, significantly impact corporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices. By applying the fixed-effect approach from Bertrand and Schoar (2003), we find that managerial innate characteristics can explain a substantial portion of variations in corporate ESG policies and outcomes, such as CSR ratings, development of green innovation, and toxic chemical emissions. Additionally, we reveal a strong correlation between CEOs’ working experience in non-profit organizations (NFPs) and these fixed effects. CEOs equipped with such experience exhibit enhanced ESG outcomes. It appears that corporate boards are increasingly selecting CEOs with a background in NFP, with the aim of augmenting their ESG performance. However, our evidence indicates that these effects can, to a certain degree, be ascribed to the CEO’s causal style. In summary, our findings emphasize the role of managerial styles in influencing corporate ESG policies and demonstrate that prior experience catering to diverse stakeholders in the not-for-profit sector better equips CEOs to achieve corporate ESG goals.
Conferences AFA 2024, FMA Asia 2022, AFBC 2022
CEO Experience and Value Creation: Evidence from Green Lab Locations (Under Review)
Green technologies are imperative for green growth. We show that CEOs with more agglomeration experience are critical for opening green R\&D labs that exploit potential productivity and agglomeration benefits. Using exogenous shocks to non-focal green inventor mobility surrounding a focal firm’s research labs, we find that the concentration of cutting-edge green inventors improves the focal firm’s green innovation quality. Using CEO$\times$firm fixed effects, we identify a significant impact of CEOs’ time-varying experience in agglomeration economies on lab location and innovation success through knowledge spillovers and better inventor-firm matching. Our findings suggest that insiders are key to the firm’s green innovation success.
Conferences EFA 2024, CICF 2023, AIEA-NBER 2023
Common Ownership and Antitrust Enforcement: Evidence from the Court
(with Huaizhou Li, Ronald Masulis and Jason Zein)
Conferences FIRN 2022, FMA Asia 2022, CELS (Conference for Empirical Legal Studies) 2022, AFBC 2022, FMCG (Financial Market and Corporate Governance) 2022 (Runner-up for Best paper in Corporate Finance)