New Publikation by Theresa Michlbauer and Thomas Zwick

These days the new ZEW Discussion Paper 21-041 “Precocious Inventor:
Early Patenting Success and Lifetime Inventive Performance” that was written by Theresa Michlbauer and Thomas Zwick has been published. It shows that precocious inventor have a substantially higher career  productivity than inventors without early success. An inventor is “precocious“, if he or she is relatively quick in applying for the first patent after finishing education or if the first patent is highly cited. The higher career productivity is not the result of cumulative advantage induced by more resources for inventors who by chance scored an early success. Instead, early success reveals a productivity potential of the inventor that otherwise is not visible for employers at this career stage.

The discussion paper can be found here:  https://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp21041.pdf