The Social Origins and IQ of Inventors∗

In this paper we merge three datasets individual income data, patenting data, and IQ data to analyze the determinants of an individual’s probability of inventing. We find that: (i) parental income is positively associated with the probability of inventing, yet the estimated impact of parental income is greatly diminished once parental socioeconomic status, parental education, and the individual’s IQ are controlled for; (ii) IQ has both a direct effect on the probability of inventing and an indirect impact through education; the impact of IQ is robust to controlling for unobserved family characteristics by focusing on potential inventors with brothers close in age; and the effect of IQ is larger for inventors than for medical doctors or lawyers; (iii) social family interactions also matter, as shown by looking at biological versus non-biological parents; (iv) there is a positive and significant interaction effect between IQ and father income.