Speaker: BI Ruigang

Date: 12:00-13:00, May. 11th, 2021

Venue: Room 306, Tongji Building A

Abstract:

Is the number of patent application a reasonable measurement of innovation ability or only a signal for startups? This question delivers important policy implication but receive little attention in the literature. By exploiting an exogenous policy shock that improves the stock liquidity and thus relatively lowers the patents’ signal value, we show that while the startups in the treatment group patented less after the liquidity shock, they experienced no decrease in R&D investment. Therefore, the result highlights the signaling value of patents for startups and call caution to the use of patent applications to measure innovation performance in startups.