This article studies how exclusive social groups shape upward mobility and whether
interactions between low-and high-status peers can integrate the top rungs of the economic …

Innovation is central to long-run economic growth. This chapter summarizes the state of the
literature on the economics of innovation, highlighting open policy questions. We first …

I provide a primer on six recent large‐scale historical patent data sets for use in innovation
research. I discuss how each data set is constructed, the types of patent information included …

We link newly digitized personnel records of the US government for 1907–1921 to census
data to study the segregation of the civil service by race under President Woodrow Wilson …

I use narrative historical data on site selection decisions for a subset of US colleges to
identify runner-up locations that were strongly considered to become the sites of new …

Innovation is an important driver of potential growth but quantitative evidence on the
dynamics of innovative activities in the long-run are hardly documented due to the lack of …

Women are underrepresented in patenting. In this study, we consider differential
responsiveness to rejection as a contributor to the gender gap in invention. Leveraging the …

In 1858, the United States Attorney General issued an opinion, Invention of a Slave,
declaring inventions by African Americans, enslaved and free, unpatentable. Within a few …

The effect of financial crises on innovation is an unsettled and important question for
economic growth, but one difficult to answer with modern data. Using a differences-in …

Does social distancing harm innovation? We estimate the effect of non-pharmaceutical
interventions (NPIs)—policies that restrict interactions in an attempt to slow the spread of …