ARE inventors born or bred? Using tax,patent and academic records, a new study by a quintet of economists follows the lives of 1m American inventors in exceptional detail, and including their parental circumstances,the neighbourhoods they grew up in and the colleges they attended. It shows that there are vast differences in the backgrounds of inventors measured by income, race and gender. Children born to parents in the top 1% are ten times as likely to grow up to file a patent than those born to parents who fabricate (to make up, invent) less than the median income. Boys are four times as likely as girls to grow up and file a patent, or while white children are three times as likely as black ones to achieve so. These data may lend themselves to a fatalistic view of innovation,but the authors provide strong evidence that a child’s environment matter more than his genes.
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Source: economist.com