Impacts of international sanctions on sender countries’ innovation

Using data from 119 countries between 2000 and 2018, this study examines the impact of international sanctions on sender countries’ innovation. Our results show that countries, which impose international sanctions, experience a significant decline in domestic patent and trademark applications by 0.171 % and 0.064 %, respectively. We also show that, among different types of sanctions, trade sanction is the main driver of this negative impact. In addition, this negative effect is not observed in high GDP, high trade openness, and high innovation groups. Finally, we find that improving government efficiency, encouraging financial development, and improving the domestic technology level can mitigate these negative effects.