***M.Sc. Students, this event can count towards one of the six mandatory Research Seminars Series needed to attend (MHS6991 or MGT6991).***
Umit Gurun, PhD
No firm or sector of the global economy is untouched by innovation. In equilibrium, innovators will flock to (and innovation will occur where) the returns to innovative capital are the highest. In this paper, we document a strong empirical pattern in green patent production. Specifically, we find that oil, gas, and energy producing firms - firms with lower Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores, and who are often explicitly excluded from ESG funds’ investment universe – are key innovators in the United States’ green patent landscape. These energy producers produce more, and significantly higher quality, green innovation. Our findings raise important questions as to whether the current exclusions of many ESG-focused policies – along with the increasing incidence of explicit divestiture campaigns - are optimal, or whether reward-based incentives would lead to more efficient innovative outcomes.
About the Speaker
Umit Gurun is Ashbel Smith chaired professor of finance and accounting at the University of Texas at Dallas. He received his PhD from the Michigan State University. He is an associate editor at Management Science. He is a past visiting professor at University of Texas at Austin (2010-2011), Harvard University (2014), and a research economist at NBER (2015-2021). Professor Gurun’s research focuses on a variety of issues in empirical asset pricing and corporate finance, including the impact of financial media and advertising on asset prices; the impact of counterfeit products on brand images, and firm valuation, among others. He is particularly interested in the ways that networks affect firm values and investor portfolio allocation.
His research has been published in top journals, including Science, American Economic Review: Insights, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Accounting Research, Management Science, and Harvard Business Review. His recent research relates to the effects of patent litigation on corporate innovation. In this vein, he has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to investigate the effects of patent litigation policy on innovation outputs. He received distinguished associate editor awards from Management Science seven times between 2015 and 2021, and a distinguished referee award from Review of Financial Studies in 2019. Finally, his research has also attracted attention in the popular press, with cites in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Institutional Investor, and the Economist.
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