American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Social Push and the Direction of Innovation
American Economic Review
(pp. 3875–3909)
Abstract
What are the implications of unequal access to innovation careers for the direction of innovation and inequality? Leveraging novel linked datasets in the United States and Finland, we document that innovators create products more likely to be purchased by consumers like them in terms of gender, socioeconomic status, and age. Homophily exists both within narrow product categories and across industries and has been stable in recent decades. Incorporating this "social push" channel into a growth model, we estimate that unequal access to innovation careers has a large effect on cost of living inequality and long-run growth.Citation
Einiö, Elias, Josh Feng, and Xavier Jaravel. 2026. "Social Push and the Direction of Innovation." American Economic Review 116 (10): 3875–3909. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20231417Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- L26 Entrepreneurship
- M13 New Firms; Startups
- O31 Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
- O33 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
- O47 Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence