Doctoral Dissertation Research: Fuel of Interest and Fire of Genius: Essays on the Timing, Direction, and Location of Innovation

许多人认为促进创新是高等教育机构的主要社会效益之一。然而，人们对大学在推动发明创造方面的历史作用知之甚少。该项目基于19世纪70年代至40年代的数字化大学年鉴创建了独特的数据。大学年鉴上学生的名字与专利数据相匹配，描绘了大学在促进美国创造力方面的作用。这些数据首次显示了来自大学毕业生和教师的专利份额。年鉴还与历史上的人口普查相匹配，回答有关大学生流动性的问题。年鉴数据描绘了迄今为止最清晰的不同人口群体在不同时期的大学参与情况；这些数据不仅揭示了女性和非裔美国人的大学出勤率，还揭示了这些人的大学专业、他们参加的体育和俱乐部，以及他们的大学经历如何影响未来的劳动力市场结果。如果没有在项目中创建的详细的学生和教师层面的数据，有关大学影响的重要问题就无法得到充分的回答。最值得注意的是，大学年鉴数据解决了三个主要问题。首先，它通过将新发明与教师和毕业生联系起来，并将他们与仅与特定学院间接互动的个人区分开来，从而允许对大学的知识溢出进行估计。其次，由于历史年鉴提供了学生的姓名和身份信息，因此有可能跨越时间和空间追踪毕业生，而不是假设他们仍然与母校住在一起。第三，大学年鉴包括学生的信息？专业，兄弟会和姐妹会成员，俱乐部和体育参与，允许在一段时间内对专业的教育回报进行估计，这一数据传统上非常稀少，以及对大学期间形成的社会网络如何影响后来的劳动力市场结果的检验

Many argue that the promotion of innovation is one of the main social benefits of institutions of higher education. Relatively little is known, however, about the historic role of colleges in driving invention. This project creates unique data based on digitizing college yearbooks from the 1870s to the 1940s. The names of students from college yearbooks are matched to patent data, creating a picture of the role of colleges in promoting American ingenuity. These data show, for the first time, what share of patents come from college graduates and faculty. The yearbooks are also matched to historical censuses, answering questions about the mobility of college students. The yearbook data paints the clearest picture yet available of college participation by different demographic groups across time; the data reveal not only college attendance by women and African Americans, but also the college majors for these individuals, the sports and clubs in which they participate, and how their college experiences affect future labor market outcomes.Important questions regarding the impact of colleges cannot be adequately answered without the kind of detailed student- and faculty-level data created in the project. Most notably, the college yearbook data solves three major problems. First, it allows for the estimation of knowledge spillovers from colleges by linking new inventions to faculty and graduates and distinguishing them from individuals who have had only indirect interactions with a particular college. Second, since the historical yearbooks give student names and identifying information, it is possible to track graduates across time and space rather than assuming they remain co-located with their alma maters. Third, the college yearbooks include information on students? majors, fraternity and sorority membership, and club and sports participation, allowing for estimation of the returns to education by major over a time period for which data has traditionally been very sparse, as well as an examination of how social networks forged in college affect later labor market outcomes