Petra Moser, NYU Stern

Paper: The Ms. Allocation of Talent: Can Changes in the Allocation of Talent Close the Innovation Gender Gap?

Abstract: This paper investigates whether changes in the allocation of talent can help to close the innovation gender gap. To examine this question, we link the biographies of more than 70,000 scientists with their patents. OLS decompositions indicate that gender differences in research focus are a main driver of the innovation gender gap: Women are less likely to patent because they are less likely to work in patent-intensive research fields. To identify the causal effects of gender differences in the allocation of talent across fields, we exploit an exogenous shock during WWII, when the scarcity of male scientists pulled female scientists into patent-intensive research fields in STEM. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate that the number of female scientists increased by 41 percent in fields with an additional 10-percent increase in the share of enlisted male scientists. Using variation in enlistments across fields as an instrument for female entry, we find that one additional woman becomes an inventor for every five women entering a field in the physical sciences. Had women worked in STEM fields at the same rate as men, 64% more American women born 1940-80 would have become inventors and the innovation gender gap would close roughly 80 years sooner.