Individual Determinants of Inventor Productivity: Report and Preliminary Results with Evidence from Linked Human Capital and Patent Data

Abstract

Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW. AbstractThis report offers new insights into the drivers of inventor productivity at the individual level.It includes well-known drivers, such as inventor age and education, and controls for inventor team size, and firm/applicant information, as well as period and technology field effects derived from patent data. In addition, it adds inventor characteristics that have been largely neglected in existing studies on inventor productivity, such as the breadth of work experience, divergent thinking skills, cognitive problem-solving skills, the use of knowledge sourced from networks within and outside of the inventors' field of expertise, and personality traits. The empirical model draws on a new dataset that matches information about inventors' human capital, such as creative skills, personality traits, networks, and career biographies (collected with a self-administered survey) with patenting histories for 1932 German inventors between the years 1978 and 2012 for clean technology, nanotechnology, and mechanical elements. Our results indicate that the additional inventor characteristics double the proportion of total variation of productivity explained by individual characteristics. Furthermore, we find differences in the importance of individual characteristics across industries and along the productivity distribution, between more and less productive inventors.

Candidate Screening for the Recruitment of Critical Research and Development Workers – A Report and Preliminary Results with Evidence from Experimental Data from German High-Tech Firms

“…In an earlier report based on the same dataset, we investigated drivers of inventive individual productivity, such as the breadth of work experience, risk attitude, divergent thinking abilities, and an analytical systematic style of problem solving and personality traits (Frosch et al, 2014b). We find that inventor characteristics closely related to creativity such as the ability for divergent thinking and openness to new experiences drive inventive productivity irrespective of the technology field.…”

Attenuation Bias When Measuring Inventive Performance

“…The data are calculate determinants of inventive performance. Gruber et al (2013) Frosch et al (2015).…”

“…the sum of the binary indicators for all patent applications J of inventor i, divided by the number of work years (Frosch et al, 2015):…”

Attenuation bias when measuring inventive performance

“…We added all patent applications of the responding inventors between 1978 and 2010 using the PATSTAT database. Further details on the data generation and descriptive statistics can be found in Frosch et al (2015).…”