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Today a couple @CenterOnBudget colleagues & I rolled out a paper on #innovation, and how barriers to it are holding us back. We hope it provides another piece of the puzzle on how states can build more prosperous, equitable economies. Let’s unpack. (1/20) https://www.cbpp.org/blog/states-that-remove-barriers-to-innovation-can-promote-wider-shared-prosperity-well-being
Tl;dr: innovation is tightly linked to human prosperity and well-being, but a legacy of structural racism, sexism, and other barriers to opportunity are limiting its full potential. States that knock down those obstacles could unleash serious economic and social value.
That’s our main takeaway from a deep dive on the topic, incl. the pathbreaking “Lost Einsteins’ Work from Raj Chetty’s team @OppInsights at @Harvard, plus other emerging research https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/losteinsteins/
Let’s start with some facts: first, it’s no secret that innovation drives a big share of economic progress. It’s also essential for helping make sure people and communities stay healthy, as our *gestures broadly* current circumstances clearly demonstrate. https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/legacy/files/downloads_and_links/08_innovation_greenstone_looney.pdf
Innovation’s value-add is important for national policy ofc, but it’s also key for states and localities too. States with more patenting activity have seen stronger economic growth, for example, and innovative metros tend to generate more jobs. https://hbr.org/2017/03/when-america-was-most-innovative-and-why?
At the same time, we’re likely only seeing a sliver of what our society’s true innovative potential has to offer. That’s b/c women, communities of color, and lower-income people were historically blocked from opportunity – to nurture & share creative talents, also just generally.
We clearly see that in the data today: men still represent some 82% of inventors, and girls, children of color, and kids from non-rich families are far less likely to become inventors than their wealthier, white, male peers, according to the @OppInsights team.
Such disparities certainly aren’t due to aptitude, of course – boys and girls score similarly in math and science at early ages, for ex. And Black people outside the South innovated at high levels a century ago, as @jtrothwell compelling documents https://twitter.com/jtrothwell/status/1330974479284047874
They also aren’t anything new. Legal and cultural barriers (and their legacy of harm) for everyone except white men have long skewed access to innovative fields, tho gaps are also narrowing.
POC were blocked by policies starting with slavery and Indian removal, then Jim Crow, racist immigration quotas, housing segregation, mass incarceration, etc. Among other things this depressed innovation, as @drlisadcook details https://lisadcook.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/pats_paper17_1013_final_web.pdf
This legacy of racism is a big part of why innovation today also skews by region, with the South – though not alone in barriers to participation, generally having the harshest and most concentrated – seeing lower levels.
Women in turn were blocked by a mix of public policy, institutional practices like hiring and college admissions, & gendered power dynamics that limited the slate of career and life choices. Barriers still linger, like underrating girls’ potential in STEM. https://www.aauw.org/app/uploads/2020/03/why-so-few-research.pdf
Such race/gender/class disparities are ofc unjust for those affected. But they also mean that there’s enormous potential for us to unleash more (and perhaps better) innovations over time, if the barriers that caused them could be undone.
The @OppInsights team, for ex. found if girls, children of color, & children from non-rich families grew up to invent at the same rate as white boys from high-income families, there could be *checks notes* 4x more U.S. inventors than there are today(!). https://www.vox.com/2017/12/4/16706352/innovation-inequality-race-gender
We build on that report by drilling down to the state-level, finding that if children from families in the bottom 80% of income (whatever their race or gender) grew up to invent same as the top 20%, many states could more than triple their inventor levels over time.
This lines up with other research finding that removing barriers can enhance our economy and make it more equitable; e.g. that GDP per capita could rise by as much as 4.4% if more women and people of color were involved in the innovative process https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Cook_PP_LO_8.13.pdf
There’s also some compelling evidence that broadening the pool of talent might enhance the *quality* of innovations too, since exposure to new ideas and cultures, and more diverse teams, can spark creative thinking and lead to overlooked solutions. https://www.npr.org/2018/07/02/625426015/the-edge-effect
How can states looking to boost innovation proceed? A good place to start is w/ targeted programs to broaden access like STEM internships and mentorships, as @OppInsights and others suggest https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/inventors_summary.pdf
But beyond that, states can also think broadly about how to bolster opportunity and dismantle the legacy of barriers that so skewed innovation in the first place: how can policymakers help more people realize their full potential?
Our report includes some ideas – like enriching public schools & boosting family income – but whatever the specifics, the bottom line is this: states could gain mightily if more people were free to share their full creative talents with the world. (20/20) https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/tapping-more-peoples-capacity-to-innovate-can-help-states-thrive
