Peers and Stars: the role of gender among coinventors

This article examines the role of gender in inventors’ collaborations and individual patenting success. We study how the time needed by an inventor to eventually become a "star" relates to their portfolio of female and male co-innovators with different characteristics in terms of career seniority and accomplishments. Our empirical analysis applies different survival models to a representative sample of almost 40’000 inventors and all their patenting co-authors, followed over a period of 10 years. We find that both gender and the relationship to other successful individuals matters. More precisely, gender diversity in inventors’ teams supports a faster career progress to stardom, seniority of peers plays a significant role only when they are mostly of the same gender, and the presence of stars among conventions is a strong catalyst of other stars, especially when among women.