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The Growth Lab's Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development.
Speaker: Ruveyda Gozen, Ph.D. - London School of Economics.
Location: Online only. Please register in advance.
Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K5C4dMtp1toJ7AKAHnORAEZYgX5q84I5/view
Abstract: How do stronger property rights for disadvantaged groups affect innovation? Dr. Ruveyda Gozen investigates the impact of strengthened property rights for women on U.S. innovation by analyzing the Married Women’s Property Acts, which granted equal property rights to women starting in 1845 in New York State. She examines the universe of granted patents from 1790 until 1901, exploiting the staggered adoption of the laws over time across states. The strengthening of women’s property rights led to a 39% increase in patenting activity among women in the long run, with effects peaking about a decade after the laws were introduced. Importantly, women’s innovations were not of lower quality (as measured by a novelty index based on patent text analysis), without generating negative effects on innovations by men. Therefore, these findings suggest that there does not appear to be an equity and efficiency trade-off. Finally, she shows that the main mechanism was through innovation incentives, and higher human capital accumulation among women inventors rather than an increase in participation in STEM fields, labor force participation, or relieving financial frictions.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Ruveyda Gozen is a research economist at the London School of Economics (LSE) at the Programme of Innovation and Diffusion (POID) directed by John Van Reenen. She is an applied microeconomist with a focus on economics of innovation, growth, entrepreneurship, institutions, inequality, and technological progress.