On February 10 at 3:15 PM in Posvar 4940, the Center for Governance and Markets will host Mapping Inventions in Idea Space: Spreading Out Over an Expanding Frontier, 1836-2023 by Jeffery Lin in partnership with the Department of Economics.
This research seminar explores how inventors choose which ideas to pursue and how those choices have changed over time. Using U.S. patent data from 1836 to 2023, the research shows that inventors today are spreading out across more diverse ideas, which reduces collaboration and makes innovation more costly. These shifts help explain why research now requires greater investment while producing fewer major breakthroughs.
Jeffrey Lin is vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He leads the regional and microeconomics section and the team responsible for producing the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey and other economic indicators. He is co-director of the Philadelphia Federal Statistical Research Data Center and co-editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics.