ODA research seminar by Lucas C. Lee, IE Business School

The ODA Section invites you to an ODA research seminar presented by Lucas C. Lee, IE Business School:

A Patent of One’s Own: The Real Effects of Pay Transparency Mandates on Women in Innovation

Abstract
When women are absent from invention teams, research priorities shift away from conditions that disproportionately affect women. We examine whether mandatory pay-transparency regulation can change this. Using the UK's gender pay gap (GPG) disclosure mandate as a quasi-natural experiment, we compare firms exposed to the mandate with otherwise similar firms. We find that treated firms increase the share of female inventors, primarily by placing women already at the firm on more patents and more all-female teams rather than by hiring externally, consistent with expanded career opportunities for existing female talent. Most notably, firms with greater female participation after the mandate produce more female-oriented inventions, suggesting that disclosure regulation can redirect technological progress toward historically underserved populations. Greater female presence is also associated with higher patent quantity, citation-based quality, grant rates, and knowledge breadth. Overall, we provide novel evidence that non-financial disclosure mandates can broaden the inventive frontier.

Everyone is welcome!