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SAT 8-3: ESG
Time:
Saturday, 06/Dec/2025:
4:20pm - 5:15pm
Presentations
The Salience of Climate Change and Green Patents Review: Evidence from Climatic Disasters
Jie Cao1 , Tao Shu2 , Xuan Tian3 , Yajing Wang 1 , Xintong Zhan4
1 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China); 2 The Chinese University of Hong Kong; 3 Tsinghua University; 4 Fudan University
This paper investigates the causal effect of patent examiners’ climate change beliefs on their green patent review behavior and green innovation outcomes. Using granular data on U.S. patent examiners across geographic locations from 2012–2020, we leverage climatic natural disasters as plausibly exogenous shocks to examiners’ climate change beliefs. We find that examiners grant significantly more green patents following local climatic disasters, with these patents showing significantly higher quality. Further analysis suggests that the effect stems from increased effort by disaster-exposed examiners during green patent reviews. These higher-quality green patents subsequently lead to greater reductions in corporate carbon emissions. We find no comparable effects for either non-green patents or non-climatic natural disasters, highlighting that examiners’ climate change beliefs exclusively influence green innovation outcomes.
