Attention (And Money) Is All You Need: Why Universities Are Struggling to Keep AI Talent

Ufuk Akcigit, Craig A. Chikis (), Emin Dinlersoz and Nathan Goldschlag ()
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Craig A. Chikis: University of Chicago
Nathan Goldschlag: Economic Innovation Group

No 2026-37, Working Papers from Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics

Abstract: We construct a novel dataset linking academic publication records to U.S. Census em-ployer–employee data to track 42,000 AI researchers over two decades. We document systematic changes in the allocation of AI talent. Industry increasingly attracts younger and foreign-bornresearchers, while gender representation improves more in academia. The top 1% of publishing industry scientists now earn $1.5 million more annually than comparable academics, a fivefold increase since 2001. Rising wage premia coincide with greater sorting into large incumbent firms. Researchers who move to industry publish less but patent more, consistent with a shift from open science toward proprietary innovation.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Open Science; Innovation; Research and Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 J45 L33 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2026
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