Human Capital, Firm Capabilities, and Innovation

Abstract

In this study, we decompose the contributions of employees' human capital and firms' capabilities for innovation using a 37-year panel of U.S. patenting activity. We estimate that inventors' human capital is 5-10 times more important than firm capabilities for explaining the variance in inventor output. We then examine matching between inventors and firms and find highly productive inventors are attracted to firms that (i) have weak firm-specific invention capabilities, and (ii) employ other talented inventors. A theoretical model that incorporates worker preferences for inventive output rationalizes our empirical findings of negative assortative matching between inventors and firms, and positive assortative matching among inventors.