Working Papers
CV & Research Statement
Immigration, Science, and Invention. Evidence from the Quota Acts (with Sahar Parsa and Shmuel San). Revision requested at Econometrica. Slides. 45m Presentation. Coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, WSJ, Behavioral Scientist, and Marginal Revolution. Code to scrape patents.
Women in Science. Lessons from the Baby Boom (with Scott Kim). Slides. Coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Times Higher Education and Expresso.
McCarthy and the Red-ucators: Effects of Political Persecution on Science (with Sahar Parsa). Slides.
Career Effects of Mental Health (with Barbara Biasi and Michael Dahl). Coverage in Business Insider.
Mental Health, Creativity, and Wealth (with Barbara Biasi and Michael Dahl).
Shell Shock: How Exposure to Combat Impacts Productivity in Science
(De-)Funding the Arts (with Michela Giorcelli).
Financing Creativity: Crowdfunding in 19th-Century Fiction (with Chelsea Carter and Megan MacGarvie).
- The United States first adopted immigration quotas for “undesirable” nationalities in 1921 and 1924 to stem the inflow of low-skilled Eastern and Southern Europeans (ESE). This paper investigates whether these quotas inadvertently hurt American science and invention. Detailed biographic data on the birth place, as well as immigration, education, and employment histories of more than 80,000 American scientists reveal a dramatic decline in the arrival of ESE-born scientists after 1924. An estimated 1,170 ESE-born scientists were missing from US science by the 1950s. To examine the effects of this change on invention, we compare changes in patenting by US scientists in the pre-quota fields of ESE-born scientists with changes in other fields in which US scientists were active inventors. Methodologically, we apply k-means clustering to scientist-level data on research topics to assign each scientists to a research field, and then compare changes in patenting for the pre-quota fields of ESE-born US scientists with the pre-quota fields of other US scientists. Baseline estimates indicate that the quotas led to 68 percent decline in US invention in ESE fields. Decomposing this effect, we find that the quotas reduced not only the number of US scientists working in ESE fields, but also the number of patents per scientist. Firms that had employed ESE-born immigrants before the quotas experienced a 53 percent decline in invention. The quotas damaging effects on US invention persisted into the 1960s.
Women in Science. Lessons from the Baby Boom (with Scott Kim). Slides. Coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Times Higher Education and Expresso.
- How do children affect scientific productivity and promotions? We investigate this question using rich biographical data - linked with publications - for 83,000 American scientists in 1956. These data reveal that mothers have a unique life cycle pattern of productivity. Publications by mothers decline in their early 30s, around the birth of their first child, and recover roughly five years later in their late 30s. Mothers publish most in their early 40s while other scientists peak in their 30s. Event studies, which compare the effect of children on married men and women, show that children reduce the productivity of mothers but not fathers. Gender differences in the impact of children are particularly pronounced for academic couples. Differences in the timing of productivity have important implications for promotions. Just 27% of mothers who are academic scientists achieve tenure, compared with 48% of fathers and 46% of women without children. While publications buy other scientists peak around tenure, mothers publish more after tenure.
McCarthy and the Red-ucators: Effects of Political Persecution on Science (with Sahar Parsa). Slides.
- This paper examines the effects of political persecution during McCarthyism on American science. Between 1949 and 1953 the National Council of American Education (NCAE) published lists of "Red-ucators" - professors and other scientists who were publicly accused of associations with subversive, communist organizations. Event studies of publications and citations show that targeted scholars experienced a large and persistent decline in their research output. After the accusations, targeted scholars were 10% less likely to publish, and they published 25% fewer papers compared with other scholars in the same fields and at similar institutions. Scientists who were accused of multiple subversive affiliations suffered most. Notably, citations to existing work by targeted scholars declined only temporarily during the height of the movement and recovered as McCarthyism lost its force.
Career Effects of Mental Health (with Barbara Biasi and Michael Dahl). Coverage in Business Insider.
- This paper investigates the career effects of mental health, focusing on depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder (BD). Individual-level registry data from Denmark show that these disorders carry large earnings penalties, ranging from 34 percent for depression and 38 percent for BD to 74 percent for schizophrenia. To investigate the causal effects of mental health on a person’s career we exploit the approval of lithium as a maintenance treatment for BD in 1976. Baseline estimates compare career outcomes for people with and without access in their 20s, the typical age of onset for BD. These estimates show that access to treatment eliminates one third of the earnings penalty associated with BD and greatly reduces the risks of low or no earnings. Importantly, access to treatment reduces the risk of disability for a person with BD by more than half.
Mental Health, Creativity, and Wealth (with Barbara Biasi and Michael Dahl).
- Focusing on bipolar disorder (BD), we investigate the link between mental health, creativity, and wealth. Analyzing population data for Denmark, we find that people with BD are more likely to be musicians, but less likely to hold other creative jobs than the population. Healthy siblings of people with BD, however, are consistently more likely to work in creative jobs. We also show people in the top decile of parental wealth are seven times as likely to work in creative professions compared with the bottom decile. Yet, wealth differences only explain a small portion of the link between BD and creativity.
Shell Shock: How Exposure to Combat Impacts Productivity in Science
- This paper investigates how trauma, due to exposure to war-time combat, affects productivity. Baseline estimates compare changes in successful patent filings from 1930 to 1970 for 24,822 draft-eligible American scientists who served in WWII with 27,981 draft-eligible scientists who did not serve. We use information on each scientist's military assignments and their service branches to measure variation in exposure to combat and match scientist with successful patent filings to measure changes in productivity following exposure. These analyses indicate severe and persistent adverse productivity effects of trauma: Compared with other draft-eligible scientists, scientists who saw combat experienced a significant decline in productivity for 10 years following the war. After 10 years, their productivity begins to recover slowly and incompletely. By comparison, scientists who served in administrative capacities within the same branch have no significant change in productivity, and scientists who served in research roles experienced a temporary increase in output. Only soldiers who served in the military corps suffered a decline in productivity that is comparable to the productivity changes for combatants. Compared with combatants, scientists who served in the medical corps took longer to begin their recovery, but unlike combatants they recovered fully. Ongoing research investigates the influence of selection into combat roles.
(De-)Funding the Arts (with Michela Giorcelli).
- How does public funding for the arts influence creativity? To answer this question, we exploit exogenous variation in exposure to cuts in public funding for theaters due to Italy's unification in 1861. Using theater-level data on performances, we show that theaters that were more exposed to cuts put on fewer shows, produced fewer new works and new productions, and shifted towards performing more popular genres. Theaters that were more exposed were also more likely to close or be replaced by movie theaters. The effects of funding cuts were particularly severe for theaters in areas with lower income and in smaller cities.
Financing Creativity: Crowdfunding in 19th-Century Fiction (with Chelsea Carter and Megan MacGarvie).
- Demand uncertainties create major obstacles for financing technological innovation, as well as creativity in the arts. This paper uses detailed book-level data on Romantic Period English literature to investigate crowdfunding as a mechanism to finance innovation in the presence of demand uncertainties. A simple model yields conditions under which authors choose alternative financing, and specifically crowdfunding. We show that new authors, female authors, and authors in new genres face substantially greater demand uncertainty than established authors, men, and authors working in established genres.. Detailed book-level contract data reveal that entrants, women, and authors in new genres are more likely to crowdfund. We find that crowd-funded works have lower payoffs on average but are substantially more likely to become a major hit. Exploring variation across genres, we show that crowdfunded novels for women (and by women) were more likely to be published in multiple editions, suggesting that realized demand exceeded expected demand in this emerging genre. Crowdfunded women’s novels are also more likely to be translated and have an increased probability of long-run success. Using text analysis to measure novelty, we show that crowd-funded titles are likely to present new ideas than publisher-funded works.
Books
Pirates and Patents. An Economic History of Intellectual Property and Innovation in Europe and the United States. Under contract with Princeton University Press.
Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture. Editor. Introduction. University of Chicago Press, 2021.
- Patents are intended to encourage innovation and economic growth. Yet, throughout history, countries have chosen piracy instead of patenting during their most critical phase of economic development. This book documents how the United States and European countries have used piracy in their early stages economic development to catch up to the technology frontier, and how they switched to patents once they reached the frontier.
Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture. Editor. Introduction. University of Chicago Press, 2021.
- Feeding the world’s growing population is one of the most critical policy challenges for the 21st century. With tightening constraints on natural resources, such as water and arable land, agricultural innovation is quickly becoming the most promising path meet the nutrient needs for future generations. Moreover, the increasing variability in the world’s climate intensifies the need for developing new crops that can tolerate extreme weather. Despite the urgency of this task, there is an active discussion on the returns to public and private spending in agricultural R&D. Since the 1990s, many of the world’s wealthier countries have scaled back their share of GDP devoted to agricultural R&D. Dwindling public support leaves universities, which, historically, have been a major source of agricultural innovation increasingly dependent on funding from industry, with uncertain effects on agricultural research. To help address these issues, this book provides new economic evidence on the sources of agricultural innovation, on challenges of measuring productivity, on the role of universities and their interactions with industry, and on emerging mechanisms to fund agricultural R&D.
Publications, Data, & Code
Copyrights and Creativity
Copyright and Creativity. Evidence from Italian Operas (with Michela Giorcelli). Appendix. Journal of Political Economy, Volume 128, Number 11, November 2020, pp. 4163-4210. Summary at Vox, on Weixin (also as full paper), and in the NBER Digest. Video by EconFilms. Interview on Freakonomics (min 17:40-28.00). Interviews in the IMF podcast and on NPR. And in stick figures.
Effects of Copyright on Science - Evidence from the WWII Book Republication Program (with Barbara Biasi). Forthcoming in the AEJ Microeconomics. Vol. 13, No. 4, November 2021. pp. 218-60. Coverage in the NBER Digest, the Economist, Vox, Cato, and the Austrian Science ORF. Interview with ORF.
“Dead Poet’s Property – How Does Copyright Influence Price?” (with Xing Li and Megan MacGarvie). RAND Journal of Economics 49 (1): 2018, pp. 181-205. Slides.
“Copyright and the Profitability of Authorship” (with Megan MacGarvie) in Avi Goldfarb, Shane Greenstein, and Catherine Tucker (eds). The Economics of Digitization: An Agenda. 2013. Summary in the Washington Post, Freakonomics.
Immigration and Science
“German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention” (with Alessandra Voena and Fabian Waldinger). American Economic Review, 2014, Volume 104(10), pp. 3222-55. Slides. Replication files and data. NPR interview on immigration and innovation. Coverage in NPR Cosmos and Culture, and Washington Post 2020 and 2022.
Patents and Innovation
“Innovation and Patents,” Louis Cain, Price Fishback, and Paul Rhode (editors) Oxford Handbook of Economic History, forthcoming.
“Patent Citations - An Analysis of Quality Differences and Citing Practices in Hybrid Corn” (with Joerg Ohmstedt and Paul Rhode). Management Science, Volume 64, Issue 4. April 2018, pp. 1477-1973. Data on patents, hybrids, citations, and improvements in yields. Slides.
“Compulsory Licensing and Innovation - Evidence from German Patents after World War I“ (with Joerg Baten and Nicola Bianchi). Journal of Development Economics, Volume 126, May 2017. Slides. Data on German patents for chemical inventions, 1900-30.
“Patent Pools, Competition and Innovation. Evidence from 20 Industries under the New Deal” (with Ryan Lampe). Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Volume 32, 2016, pp. 1-36. Oliver Williamson Prize, Runner-Up for Best Paper Published in 2016. Do file and data.
"Patents and Innovation in Economic History. Annual Review of Economics, Volume 8, 2016. Working paper.
“Patent Pools and Innovation in Substitute Technologies – Evidence from the U.S. Sewing Machine Industry” (with Ryan Lampe). RAND Journal of Economics, 2014, Volume 44, Issue 4, pp. 757-778. Do file and data.
“Compulsory Licensing: Evidence from the Trading with the Enemy Act” (with Alessandra Voena). The American Economic Review. Volume 102, Issue 1, February 2012, pp. 396–427. Slides. Replication files and data.
“Prizes, Publicity, and Patents – Non-Monetary Awards as a Mechanism to Encourage Innovation” (with Tom Nicholas). Journal of Industrial Economics, 2013 Volume 61: pp. 763–788. Slides. Data on prizes awarded at the Crystal Palace Fair in 1851.
“Patents and Innovation – Evidence from Economic History.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 27, Number 1, Winter 2013, pp. 23–44.
“Innovation without Patents – Evidence from World’s Fairs” The Journal of Law and Economics, Volume 55, No. 1, February 2012, pp. 43-74. Individual-level data on British exhibits, prizes, and patents.
“Did Plant Patents Create the American Rose?” (with Paul Rhode) in Joshua Lerner and Scott Stern (eds). The Rate and Direction of Technological Change, Chicago University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 413-41.
“Patent Pools: Licensing Strategies in the Absence of Regulation” (with Ryan Lampe). Advances in Strategic Management, Volume 29, 2012, pp. 69-86.
“Do Patents Weaken the Localization of Innovations? Evidence from World's Fairs, 1851-1915.” The Journal of Economic History, Volume 71, Number 2, June 2011, pp. 363-382. Individual-level data for 1851 exhibits from Britain and France with locations.
“Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from the 19th-Century Sewing Machine Industry” with Ryan Lampe. The Journal of Economic History, Volume 70, Issue 04, December 2010, pp. 898-920. Do-file, main data, and per stitches per minute data.
“How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World Fairs,” The American Economic Review, Volume 95, Number 4, September 2005, pp. 1214-1236. Slides. Data for regressions; individual-level data with locations for Britain and France. Data on all prizes in 1851. Summaries in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wirtschaftswoche.
“Was Electricity a General Purpose Technology? Evidence from Historical Patent Citations” with Tom Nicholas, The American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2004, vol. 94, no.2, pp.388-394.
Education and Innovation
Biasi, Barbara, David J. Deming, and Petra Moser. “Education and Innovation.” in Aaron Chatterji, Josh Lerner, Scott Stern and Michael J. Andrews (eds.) The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Empirical Methods
"Spatial Errors in Count Data Regressions" (with Marinho Bertanha). Journal of Econometric Methods, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2016. Code.
Taste-based Discrimination
“Taste-Based Discrimination. Evidence from a Shift in Ethnic Preferences after WWI.” Explorations in Economic History, Volume 49, Issue 2, April 2012, pp. 167–188.
Copyright and Creativity. Evidence from Italian Operas (with Michela Giorcelli). Appendix. Journal of Political Economy, Volume 128, Number 11, November 2020, pp. 4163-4210. Summary at Vox, on Weixin (also as full paper), and in the NBER Digest. Video by EconFilms. Interview on Freakonomics (min 17:40-28.00). Interviews in the IMF podcast and on NPR. And in stick figures.
Effects of Copyright on Science - Evidence from the WWII Book Republication Program (with Barbara Biasi). Forthcoming in the AEJ Microeconomics. Vol. 13, No. 4, November 2021. pp. 218-60. Coverage in the NBER Digest, the Economist, Vox, Cato, and the Austrian Science ORF. Interview with ORF.
“Dead Poet’s Property – How Does Copyright Influence Price?” (with Xing Li and Megan MacGarvie). RAND Journal of Economics 49 (1): 2018, pp. 181-205. Slides.
“Copyright and the Profitability of Authorship” (with Megan MacGarvie) in Avi Goldfarb, Shane Greenstein, and Catherine Tucker (eds). The Economics of Digitization: An Agenda. 2013. Summary in the Washington Post, Freakonomics.
Immigration and Science
“German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention” (with Alessandra Voena and Fabian Waldinger). American Economic Review, 2014, Volume 104(10), pp. 3222-55. Slides. Replication files and data. NPR interview on immigration and innovation. Coverage in NPR Cosmos and Culture, and Washington Post 2020 and 2022.
Patents and Innovation
“Innovation and Patents,” Louis Cain, Price Fishback, and Paul Rhode (editors) Oxford Handbook of Economic History, forthcoming.
“Patent Citations - An Analysis of Quality Differences and Citing Practices in Hybrid Corn” (with Joerg Ohmstedt and Paul Rhode). Management Science, Volume 64, Issue 4. April 2018, pp. 1477-1973. Data on patents, hybrids, citations, and improvements in yields. Slides.
“Compulsory Licensing and Innovation - Evidence from German Patents after World War I“ (with Joerg Baten and Nicola Bianchi). Journal of Development Economics, Volume 126, May 2017. Slides. Data on German patents for chemical inventions, 1900-30.
“Patent Pools, Competition and Innovation. Evidence from 20 Industries under the New Deal” (with Ryan Lampe). Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Volume 32, 2016, pp. 1-36. Oliver Williamson Prize, Runner-Up for Best Paper Published in 2016. Do file and data.
"Patents and Innovation in Economic History. Annual Review of Economics, Volume 8, 2016. Working paper.
“Patent Pools and Innovation in Substitute Technologies – Evidence from the U.S. Sewing Machine Industry” (with Ryan Lampe). RAND Journal of Economics, 2014, Volume 44, Issue 4, pp. 757-778. Do file and data.
“Compulsory Licensing: Evidence from the Trading with the Enemy Act” (with Alessandra Voena). The American Economic Review. Volume 102, Issue 1, February 2012, pp. 396–427. Slides. Replication files and data.
“Prizes, Publicity, and Patents – Non-Monetary Awards as a Mechanism to Encourage Innovation” (with Tom Nicholas). Journal of Industrial Economics, 2013 Volume 61: pp. 763–788. Slides. Data on prizes awarded at the Crystal Palace Fair in 1851.
“Patents and Innovation – Evidence from Economic History.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 27, Number 1, Winter 2013, pp. 23–44.
“Innovation without Patents – Evidence from World’s Fairs” The Journal of Law and Economics, Volume 55, No. 1, February 2012, pp. 43-74. Individual-level data on British exhibits, prizes, and patents.
“Did Plant Patents Create the American Rose?” (with Paul Rhode) in Joshua Lerner and Scott Stern (eds). The Rate and Direction of Technological Change, Chicago University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 413-41.
“Patent Pools: Licensing Strategies in the Absence of Regulation” (with Ryan Lampe). Advances in Strategic Management, Volume 29, 2012, pp. 69-86.
“Do Patents Weaken the Localization of Innovations? Evidence from World's Fairs, 1851-1915.” The Journal of Economic History, Volume 71, Number 2, June 2011, pp. 363-382. Individual-level data for 1851 exhibits from Britain and France with locations.
“Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from the 19th-Century Sewing Machine Industry” with Ryan Lampe. The Journal of Economic History, Volume 70, Issue 04, December 2010, pp. 898-920. Do-file, main data, and per stitches per minute data.
“How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World Fairs,” The American Economic Review, Volume 95, Number 4, September 2005, pp. 1214-1236. Slides. Data for regressions; individual-level data with locations for Britain and France. Data on all prizes in 1851. Summaries in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wirtschaftswoche.
“Was Electricity a General Purpose Technology? Evidence from Historical Patent Citations” with Tom Nicholas, The American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2004, vol. 94, no.2, pp.388-394.
Education and Innovation
Biasi, Barbara, David J. Deming, and Petra Moser. “Education and Innovation.” in Aaron Chatterji, Josh Lerner, Scott Stern and Michael J. Andrews (eds.) The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Empirical Methods
"Spatial Errors in Count Data Regressions" (with Marinho Bertanha). Journal of Econometric Methods, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2016. Code.
Taste-based Discrimination
“Taste-Based Discrimination. Evidence from a Shift in Ethnic Preferences after WWI.” Explorations in Economic History, Volume 49, Issue 2, April 2012, pp. 167–188.
