I came across this paper the other day and wanted to share some excerpts, and the link to the full paper. American innovation is one of the most important factors in American dynamics, and without it the U.S. will loose serious steam, and untold quantities of wealth.
According to this paper, the majority of innovation is driven by White and Asian (including Indian) individuals, over 90%.
Meanwhile, in Seattle: “progressives, donning their white knight armor, are in the next phase of a plan to end Seattle Public Schools’ gifted students program — known locally as its Highly Capable Cohort (HCC). They complained the HCC was too white.“
-CH
Innovation is a key driver of long run economic growth. Studying innovation requires a clear view of the characteristics and behavior of the individuals that create new ideas. A general lack of rich, large-scale data has constrained such analyses. We address this by introducing a new dataset linking patent inventors to survey, census, and administrative microdata at the U.S. Census Bureau. We use this data to provide a first look at the demographic characteristics, employer characteristics, earnings, and employment dynamics of inventors. These linkages, which will be available to researchers with approved access, dramatically increases the scope of what can be learned about inventors and innovative activity.
Inventor Demographics
Females are underrepresented among inventors, especially on a citation weighted basis. Females account for less than 12% of inventors, a share that is rising and tends to be higher among young inventors. The share of citations accounted for by female inventors lags behind their share of the inventor population.
Many inventors are foreign born. Over 30% of inventors are foreign born and we see a rise and fall of foreign born share among young inventors. China and India account for an increasing share of foreign born inventors, rising from 25% to 40% by 2016.
Inventors are getting older. The average age of inventors rises from 43 to 46 over this period. The share of young inventors falls through 2011, but begins to rise thereafter.
African Americans are significantly under represented among inventors, Asians inventors are increasingly common. We find under representation of most minorities, especially for African Americans, who account for less than two percent of inventors. Asians, on the other hand, rose from 13% to 22% of inventors.
Representation of different demographic groups varies significantly by sector. Female inventors have greater representation in the Health Care and Social Assistance and Education sectors. Foreign born inventors are more common in the Information, Education, and Professional/Scientific Services sectors. The share of young inventors is highest in the Information sector.
Employer Characteristic
Inventors work at older, larger firms. Over 68% of inventors work in firms over 20 years old. Almost 63% of inventors work in large firms with at least 1000 employees. Akcigit and Goldschlag (2023) show that the share of inventors at incumbent firms rose from 49% to 58% between 2000 and 2016. This pattern appears to go back to the 1970s. The share of inventors on patent grants with the largest assignees between 1980 and 2018 rose from about 34% to 47% percent.
Inventors, especially the most productive, are much less likely to work at young firms. The share of inventors working at firms ≤ 5 years old fell by almost half over this period from 15% to under 8%. This share fell the most among super star inventors, those with the most impactful patents.
Inventors at young firms produce more impactful patents. Inventors at young, medium size firms tend to have the highest impact patents. Inventors at older, smaller firms tend to have the lowest impact patents.