Results

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Joseph Schumpeter Lecture, EEA Annual Congress 2017: do tax cuts produce more Einsteins? The impacts of financial incentives versus exposure to innovation on the supply of inventors

Many countries provide financial incentives to spur innovation, ranging from tax incentives to research and development grants. In this paper, we study how such financial incentives affect individuals' decisions to pursu...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Who becomes an inventor in America? The importance of exposure to innovation

We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in the United States, focusing on the role of inventive ability (?nature?) versus environment (?nurture?). Using deidentified data on 1.2 million invento...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do tax cuts produce more Einsteins? The impacts of financial incentives vs. exposure to innovation on the supply of inventors

Many countries provide financial incentives to spur innovation, ranging from tax incentives to research and development grants. In this paper, we study how such financial incentives affect individuals' decisions to pursu...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Lost Einsteins: who becomes an inventor in America?

Who are America?s most successful inventors ? and what can we learn from their experiences in designing policies to stimulate innovation? To answer these questions, former CEP director John Van Reenen and his colleagues ...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Lost Einsteins: How exposure to innovation influences who becomes an inventor

Article by Alex Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova and John Van Reenen: Relatively little is known about the factors that induce people to become inventors. Using data on the lives of over one million inv...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Who becomes an inventor in America? The importance of exposure to innovation

We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in the United States, focusing on the role of inventive ability ('nature') vs. environment ('nurture'). Using de-identified data on 1.2 million inventors...Read more...