Abstract
This paper explores how the premature death of an inventor affects the productivity and career trajectories of co-inventors. To this end, we develop and analyze a dataset covering the careers of 152,350 German inventors. The data combine highly precise employer-employee data from official social security registers with patent office information covering the period from 1980-2014. Departing from 799 registered premature deaths of inventors and the same number of matched inventors, we study how co-inventors were affected by the death of their peers. Using a difference-in-differences and an event study design, we investigate the reaction of the co-inventors' patenting activities, career advancement and job mobility. Using a number of measures and robustness checks, our results show that the premature death of a co-inventor reduces the productivity of the surviving co-inventors. The effect sets in immediately and survivors do not seem to recover from the shock in the five years following. We argue that employers will seek to retain co-inventors under certain conditions in order to continue lines of research and invention. The empirical results confirm our expectations: surviving inventors are significantly less likely to move to a different employer and are more likely to be promoted compared to inventors in the control group. These effects seem to diminish after about two years.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Titel | Proceedings of the Eightieth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management |
Redaktører | Guclu Atinc |
Antal sider | 5 |
Udgivelsessted | Briarcliff Manor, NY |
Forlag | Academy of Management |
Publikationsdato | 2020 |
Artikelnummer | 171 |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2020 |
Begivenhed | The Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2020: Broadening Our Sight - Virtual Varighed: 7 aug. 2020 → 11 aug. 2020 Konferencens nummer: 80 https://aom.org/events/annual-meeting/past-annual-meetings/2020-broadening-our-sight |
Konference
Konference | The Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2020 |
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Nummer | 80 |
Lokation | Virtual |
Periode | 07/08/2020 → 11/08/2020 |
Internetadresse |
Navn | Academy of Management Proceedings |
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ISSN | 2151-6561 |