Chinese Social Sciences Today - CSSN (China):
Focusing on the importance of environment on innovation
22 January 2018
One of the researchers, John Van Reenen, a professor of management and economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told this reporter that the study found that the childhood environment was a key factor influencing innovation. The probability that a child who grew up in a larger number of inventors was the inventor was significantly higher. This effect first works through parents. For those who filed or held patents up until 2014, born in 1979-1985, the rate of innovation was 18 ‰ and 2 ‰, respectively, for those whose parents were inventors and whose parents were not inventors.