Working Paper: NBER ID: w19223
Authors: Qing Miao; David Popp
Abstract: How do innovators respond to the shock of a natural disaster? Do natural disasters spur technical innovations that can reduce the risk of future hazards? This paper examines the impact of three types of natural disasters including earthquakes, droughts and flooding on the innovation of their respective mitigation technologies. Using patent and disaster data, our study is the first to relate natural disasters to technology innovation, and also presents the first attempt to empirically examine adaptation responses to climate change across multiple sectors at the country level. Overall, we show that natural disasters lead to more risk-mitigating innovations, while the degree of influence varies across different types of disasters and technologies.
Keywords: Natural disasters; Innovation; Risk mitigation; Climate change adaptation
JEL Codes: O3; Q54; Q55
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Natural disasters (H84) | Increased demand for adaptive technologies (O33) |
| Increased demand for adaptive technologies (O33) | Development of new technologies (O39) |
| Past innovations (O35) | Current disaster responses (H84) |
| Foreign disaster shocks (H84) | Domestic innovation (O39) |
| Natural disasters (H84) | Increase in risk-mitigating innovations (O39) |
| Natural disasters (H84) | Increase in patent applications (O39) |