Skip to main content

PRINZ Seminar

Shock Therapy for Clean Innovation: Within-firm reallocation of R&D investments

Esther Ann Bøler (Imperial College London), joint work with Katinka Holtsmark and Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe


Tuesday 17 June 2025 11:15 - 12:15

This event is both online and in person

SAL 2.04, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH

About this event

We analyze how a negative shock to the profitability of oil-extracting firms leads to a shift from dirty to clean R&D along the supply chain. To guide our empirical analysis, we first develop a theoretical framework, showing that adjustment costs in R&D give firms in the fossil energy supply chain an additional incentive to shift R&D activity towards clean innovation as a consequence of a negative shock. Next, we leverage the 2014 oil price drop to empirically investigate the impact of reduced profitability in the fossil energy supply chain on clean R&D. We propose a novel method to identify firms’ exposure to the shock. In line with the predictions from the model, we find that more exposed firms increased their clean R&D more than other firms. Our findings imply that carbon pricing will induce clean innovation not only by increasing demand for clean technologies, but also by lowering profitability in the fossil energy supply chain.


Participants are expected to adhere to the Events Code of Conduct.


This event will take place in SAL 2.04, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH.

The building is labelled SAL on the map. Enter the building via Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Campus
LSE Campus Map