Award-Winning Research: Exposure to Natural Disasters Inspires Green Innovation

In this Q&A, Lisa Keding describes her award-winning research, including her research questions, methods, and key findings.  She also shares what motives her to do this important work.

1. What is your research question?

What drives inventors to pursue new ideas? In this paper we explore how personal experiences affect inventors’ choices, and if those experiences shape inventors’ intrinsic motivation or their monetary incentives. In particular, we investigate whether being directly hit by floods, storms, or heatwaves makes inventors more likely to develop “green” technologies that help society mitigate or adapt to climate change. We also explore whether this behavioural response is enabled by changes in inventors’ higher-order beliefs: their expectations about what consumers and regulators will value in the future, and therefore their expectations about the future profitability of green innovation.

2. How did you study that question?

We built a dataset for Germany and France, spanning 1994–2014, linking individual inventors’ patent data to the timing and locations of severe natural disasters. We applied event-study methods to analyze how experiencing these disasters affected inventors’ subsequent green innovation activities—technologies designed to help society mitigate or adapt to climate change. Here, we look at the number of green patents within an administrative region.

When we learned that exposure to natural disasters does correlate with an increase in green inventions, we wanted to know why. So, we analysed archival data from a German, firm-level innovation survey, where managers responsible for innovation activities reported their firms’ reasons for engaging in green innovation. We formally embed our behavioural mechanism into a theoretical framework

3. What are 1–2 of your most interesting findings?

We find that for each additional disaster a region experiences, local green patenting goes up by 8.2 %, with the cumulative effect reaching about 25 % after five years—a net gain of 0.64 patents per region. This increase is concentrated in mitigation technologies that lower emissions, and appears in triadic and highly‑cited patents, indicating genuine economic value. The effects are also highly local. We see no meaningful spillovers to neighboring regions, highlighting the role of being personally affected.

Our results also show that personal experience shapes how inventors form expectations about consumer preferences. We find that experiencing one additional natural disaster in the past makes inventors 0.87 percent more likely to cite expected increases in consumer demand for green goods as a reason for their green innovation. Finally, in line with our model, almost all of our baseline effect comes from markets with high levels of competition. This finding underscores that economic incentives, rather than purely intrinsic motivations, play a central role in driving innovation responses.

4. Who outside academia needs to know this? What should they do differently?

We see three interesting applications of these findings, particularly for policymakers:

1. Because personal experiences shape inventors’ focus, policymakers should consider lived experiences in their green innovation policy and funding decisions. For instance, in regions recently affected by natural disasters, there may be a surge of inventive activity around green technologies. This could create interesting opportunities for venture capital funds with a focus on climate-oriented projects. Affected regions may offer particularly promising ideas and startups.

2. Because monetary incentives and competitive markets shape inventor focus, policy makers should aim to create stable regulatory environments and strengthen market competition. Stable and predictable rules reduce uncertainty for firms and encourage long-term investment in innovation. For example, lowering administrative barriers to entry makes it easier for new firms to compete, thereby spurring innovation and accelerating the diffusion of green technologies.

3. Our research shows that natural disasters only produce local increases in green innovation, but local responses are costlier and less efficient than coordinated global strategies. To help optimize resource allocation and impact, regional policymakers could aim to align their local innovation policies with broader, international efforts.

5. What motivated you to do a PhD in this area

I chose to do a PhD in this area because so many societal and economic challenges, like climate change and inequality, remain unsolved despite considerable research. This tells me that there is still much to understand and accomplish.

Innovation is central to addressing complex problems. I am particularly fascinated by the role of individual inventors—their experiences, skills, and motivations—and how these personal factors interact with broader market conditions. Understanding which individuals, skills, and types of organizations are most effective at driving change is crucial. My motivation stems from the belief that unraveling these dynamics can help us use innovation more effectively to tackle pressing societal issues and foster sustainable, inclusive growth.