IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/24110.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Social Origins of Inventors

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Aghion
  • Ufuk Akcigit
  • Ari Hyytinen
  • Otto Toivanen

Abstract

In this paper we merge three datasets - individual income data, patenting data, and IQ data - to analyze the determinants of an individual's probability of inventing. We find that: (i) parental income matters even after controlling for other background variables and for IQ, yet the estimated impact of parental income is greatly diminished once parental education and the individual's IQ are controlled for; (ii) IQ has both a direct effect on the probability of inventing an indirect impact through education. The effect of IQ is larger for inventors than for medical doctors or lawyers. The impact of IQ is robust to controlling for unobserved family characteristics by focusing on potential inventors with brothers close in age. We also provide evidence on the importance of social family interactions, by looking at biological versus non-biological parents. Finally, we find a positive and significant interaction effect between IQ and father income, which suggests a misallocation of talents to innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Aghion & Ufuk Akcigit & Ari Hyytinen & Otto Toivanen, 2017. "The Social Origins of Inventors," NBER Working Papers 24110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24110
    Note: EFG LS PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24110.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Motivating Innovation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1823-1860, October.
    2. Holmstrom, Bengt, 1989. "Agency costs and innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 305-327, December.
    3. Pakes, Ariel & Nitzan, Shmuel, 1983. "Optimum Contracts for Research Personnel, Research Employment, and the Establishment of "Rival" Enterprises," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 345-365, October.
    4. April M. Franco & Matthew F. Mitchell, 2008. "Covenants not to Compete, Labor Mobility, and Industry Dynamics," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 581-606, September.
    5. Philippe Aghion & Ufuk Akcigit & Antonin Bergeaud & Richard Blundell & David Hemous, 2019. "Innovation and Top Income Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 1-45.
    6. Xavier Jaravel & Neviana Petkova & Alex Bell, 2018. "Team-Specific Capital and Innovation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 1034-1073, April.
    7. Hertz Tom & Jayasundera Tamara & Piraino Patrizio & Selcuk Sibel & Smith Nicole & Verashchagina Alina, 2008. "The Inheritance of Educational Inequality: International Comparisons and Fifty-Year Trends," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-48, January.
    8. Roope Uusitalo & Juhana Vartiainen, 2009. "Finland: Firm Factors in Wages and Wage Changes," NBER Chapters, in: The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison, pages 149-178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Holmström, Bengt, 1989. "Agency Costs and Innovation," Working Paper Series 214, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    10. Pekkarinen, Tuomas & Uusitalo, Roope & Kerr, Sari, 2009. "School tracking and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from the Finnish comprehensive school reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 965-973, August.
    11. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    12. Magnus Carlsson & Gordon B. Dahl & Björn Öckert & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2015. "The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 533-547, July.
    13. Ufuk Akcigit & John Grigsby & Tom Nicholas, 2017. "The Rise of American Ingenuity: Innovation and Inventors of the Golden Age," Working Papers 2017-6, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    14. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J., 2011. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 16, pages 1487-1541, Elsevier.
    15. Corak,Miles (ed.), 2004. "Generational Income Mobility in North America and Europe," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521827607.
    16. Ufuk Akcigit & Salomé Baslandze & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2016. "Taxation and the International Mobility of Inventors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 2930-2981, October.
    17. Giuri, Paola & Mariani, Myriam, 2007. "Inventors and invention processes in Europe: Results from the PatVal-EU survey," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1105-1106, October.
    18. Sari Pekkala Kerr & Tuomas Pekkarinen & Roope Uusitalo, 2013. "School Tracking and Development of Cognitive Skills," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 577-602.
    19. Chang‐Tai Hsieh & Erik Hurst & Charles I. Jones & Peter J. Klenow, 2019. "The Allocation of Talent and U.S. Economic Growth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(5), pages 1439-1474, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Albert N. Link & Martijn van Hasselt, 2022. "The use of intellectual property protection mechanisms by publicly supported firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1-2), pages 111-121, February.
    2. Francesco D’Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Maritta Paloviita & Michael Weber, 2023. "IQ, Expectations, and Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(5), pages 2292-2325.
    3. Fons-Rosen, Christian & Gaule, Patrick & Hrendash, Taras, 2023. "Why Has Science Become an Old Man's Game?," IZA Discussion Papers 16365, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Alex Bell & Raj Chetty & Xavier Jaravel & Neviana Petkova & John Van Reenen, 2019. "Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 647-713.
    5. Bell, Alex & Chetty, Raj & Jaravel, Xavier & Petkova, Neviana & Van Reenen, John, 2019. "Do tax cuts produce more Einsteins? The impacts of financial incentives vs. exposure to innovation on the supply of inventors," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121796, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Berger, Thor & Prawitz, Erik, 2023. "Inventors among the “Impoverished Sophisticate”," Working Paper Series 1462, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    7. Francesco D'Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Maritta Paloviita & Michael Weber, 2019. "Human Frictions to the Transmission of Economic Policy," 2019 Meeting Papers 339, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Zhu, J., 2018. "The agricultural root of innovation in China," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277219, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Kristoffer Berg & Shafik Hebous, 2021. "Does A Wealth Tax Improve Equality of Opportunity?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9174, CESifo.
    10. Youwei Wang & Yuxin Chen & Yi Qian, 2018. "The Causal Link between Relative Age Effect and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from 17 Million Users across 49 Years on Taobao," NBER Working Papers 25318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2019_002 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Ruchir Agarwal & Patrick Gaule, 2020. "Invisible Geniuses: Could the Knowledge Frontier Advance Faster?," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 409-424, December.
    13. Felix Bracht & Dennis Verhoeven, 2021. "Air pollution and innovation," CEP Discussion Papers dp1817, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. repec:iab:iabfda:201803(en is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Hvide, Hans K. & Oyer, Paul, 2017. "Dinner Table Human Capital and Entrepreneurship," Research Papers repec:ecl:stabus:3658, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    16. Dongmin Kong & Jialong Wang & Yanan Wang & Jian Zhang, 2022. "Language and innovation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1-2), pages 297-326, January.
    17. Dorner, Matthias & Harhoff, Dietmar & Gaessler, Fabian & Hoisl, Karin & Poege, Felix, 2019. "Linked Inventor Biography Data 1980-2014 : (INV-BIO ADIAB 8014)," FDZ Datenreport. Documentation on Labour Market Data 201803_en, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    18. D'Acunto, Francesco & Hoang, Daniel & Paloviita, Maritta & Weber, Michael, 2019. "IQ, expectations, and choice," Working Paper Series in Economics 127, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    19. Ufuk Akcigit & John Grigsby & Tom Nicholas & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2018. "Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century," NBER Working Papers 24982, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Kilström, Matilda & Roth, Paula, 2022. "Risk-Sharing and Entrepreneurship," Working Paper Series 1424, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bell, Alex & Chetty, Raj & Jaravel, Xavier & Petkova, Neviana & Van Reenen, John, 2019. "Do tax cuts produce more Einsteins? The impacts of financial incentives vs. exposure to innovation on the supply of inventors," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121796, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Celik, Murat Alp, 2023. "Does the Cream Always Rise to the Top? The Misallocation of Talent in Innovation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 105-128.
    3. Alex Bell & Raj Chetty & Xavier Jaravel & Neviana Petkova & John Van Reenen, 2019. "Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 647-713.
    4. Neidhöfer, Guido & Serrano, Joaquín & Gasparini, Leonardo, 2018. "Educational inequality and intergenerational mobility in Latin America: A new database," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 329-349.
    5. Guido Neidhöfer, 2019. "Intergenerational mobility and the rise and fall of inequality: Lessons from Latin America," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(4), pages 499-520, December.
    6. d’Andria, Diego, 2016. "Why are researchers paid bonuses? On technology spillovers and market rivalry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 2105-2112.
    7. Emran, M. Shahe & Jiang, Hanchen & Shilpi, Forhad, 2020. "Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility: Theory and Evidence from China and India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 497, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    9. Emran, M. Shahe & Jiang, Hanchen & Shilpi, Forhad, 2021. "Is Gender Destiny? Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 807, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    10. Alyssa Schneebaum & Bernhard Rumplmaier & Wilfried Altzinger, 2015. "Gender in intergenerational educational persistence across time and place," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 413-445, May.
    11. Jordi Caballé, 2016. "Intergenerational mobility: measurement and the role of borrowing constraints and inherited tastes," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 393-420, November.
    12. Rasmus Landersø & James J. Heckman, 2017. "The Scandinavian Fantasy: Sources of Intergenerational Mobility in Denmark and the US," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 178-230, January.
    13. Carsten Andersen, 2019. "Intergenerational Health Mobility: Evidence from Danish Registers," Economics Working Papers 2019-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    14. Chloe Kim Glaeser & Stephen Glaeser & Eva Labro, 2023. "Proximity and the Management of Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 3080-3099, May.
    15. Orhan Torul & Oguz Oztunali, 2017. "Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Europe," Working Papers 2017/03, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    16. Carneiro, Pedro & Reis, Hugo & Toppeta, Alessandro, 2024. "Parental Investments and Socio-Economic Gradients in Learning across European Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 16785, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Bhattacharya, Sourav & Chakraborty, Pavel & Chatterjee, Chirantan, 2022. "Intellectual property regimes and wage inequality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    18. Sander Wagner, 2017. "Children of the Reunification: Gendered Effects on Intergenerational Mobility in Germany," Working Papers 2017-03, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    19. Bevis, Leah E.M. & Barrett, Christopher B., 2015. "Decomposing Intergenerational Income Elasticity: The Gender-differentiated Contribution of Capital Transmission in Rural Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 233-252.
    20. Brezis, Elise S. & Hellier, Joël, 2018. "Social mobility at the top and the higher education system," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 36-54.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.