How does one measure innovation? It’s not like examining a stock market index. Should we look at citations? Who inventors claim to have been inspired by? Or is it more of a “feeling”?
A new paper published in American Economic Review: Insights offers a novel way to judge how inventions influence those that come after them based on language. It also gives a glimpse at where innovation was occurring over the last 200 years of American history and points toward some of the most innovative inventions of all time.
