Social push and the direction of innovation

Elias Einiö, Josh Feng and Xavier Jaravel

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

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.

Keywords: direction of innovation; entrepreneurship; inequality; economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O33 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-sbm
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Published in American Economic Review, 1, October, 2026, 116(10). ISSN: 0002-8282

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:130164

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