Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/309139 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
Staff Reports No. 1134
Publisher: 
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY
Abstract: 
We provide evidence that financial distress induces firms to sell their technology to foreign competitors. To do so, we construct a novel, spatial panel dataset by individually researching and locating U.S. firms who signed Technology Transfer Agreements (TTAs) with the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s in various U.S. counties. By relating the number of TTAs signed in each county to the number of bank failures, we establish a significant, positive relationship between financial distress and the number of firms signing TTAs with the Soviet Union. Our findings suggest that banking panics may create opportunities for foreign countries to acquire affected firms' technology.
Subjects: 
banking panic
technology assistance
know-how diffusion
industrialization
industrial policy
JEL: 
G21
N6
O33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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