We examine how local political corruption affects firm innovation in the United States. We find that firms located in highly corrupt areas are less innovative as measured by their patenting activities. The results are robust to the inclusion of a broad set of regional characteristics,...

This paper examines the impact of the local opioid epidemic on corporate innovation. Using a large sample of U.S. public firms from 2003 to 2017, we find that firms located in counties with higher death rates caused by opioid overdoses are significantly less innovative as measured by their...

This paper examines the relationship between competition and product development innovation using the U.S. trademark database. We find that greater import competition spurs corporate product innovation measured by newly launched trademarks. However, such increase in foreign competition is...