Emotions and Inventor Productivity: Evidence from Terrorist Attacks

We examine whether the emotional shocks associated with terrorist attacks affect local inventors’ productivity. We find that high-fatality attacks make inventors less innovative, and low-fatality attacks make them more innovative. Inventors living in high risk-taking environments have greater increase in productivity following low-fatality attacks, while less decrease in productivity following high-fatality attacks. Further, the effect of terrorist attacks on inventor productivity mainly comes from exploratory innovation which involves more risks. Inventors affected by high-fatality attacks are also more likely to move to places without any significant terrorist attack history, but there is no such effect for low-fatality attacks.