Conference Programme
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available). Note that the schedule is subject to changes.
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Daily Overview |
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Research Sketches 2: Sustainability Disclosure & Reporting Location: Auditorium (Level 1) Session Chair: Mike Toffel, Harvard Business School | |
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The Disclosure Channel of Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from Environmental Innovation 1: UNSW Sydney, Australia; 2: University of Technology Sydney; 3: University of Sydney Do disclosure decisions affect knowledge spillovers independently of R&D investment? R&D subsidies encourage innovation; disclosure policies determine whether knowledge becomes public or remains secret. We show this distinction matters fundamentally for environmental innovation. Using disclosure quality-weighted environmental patents and regulatory enforcement instruments, we find clean technology disclosure generates substantial spillovers to peer firms while disclosing firms capture essentially none of these benefits. Traditional innovation shows no disclosure effects beyond R&D investment. Process-based environmental technologies drive these results: they cannot be reverse-engineered, making patent disclosure critical for knowledge diffusion. Clean knowledge spillovers reduce emissions by 5%. Policy makers face two problems: underinvestment in innovation and under-disclosure of existing knowledge. Current climate policy addresses only the first, leaving disclosure as a critical but underused lever. | |