| By: |
Sabrina Di Addario;
Michela Giorcelli;
Agata Maida |
| Abstract: |
The share of female inventors remains significantly lower than that of men in
both developed and developing countries. This paper studies gender bias in
patenting activity, using a unique dataset that matches Italian administrative
employer-employee records both to patent data from the European Patent Office
(1987-2005) and to municipality-level information on medieval guilds from the
Italian Central Archive of State. We empirically verify whether women's low
propensity to patent can be explained by the historical local conception of
women's role in society, which we measure with the share of women in guild
founders from the Middle Ages. The results indicate that the presence of women
in Medieval guilds is associated with a higher probability of observing a
female inventor and a higher number of yearly patent submissions by women. |
| Keywords: |
patents, women, inventors, guilds |
| JEL: |
J60 |
| Date: |
2024–12–20 |
| URL: |
https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:500 |