Data and Code for: Inventor Gender and the Direction of Invention

We study whether increasing the share of female inventors leads to more biomedical inventions that focus on the needs of women. After accounting for detailed disease-technology, disease-year, and technology-year fixed effects, we find that a 10 percentage-point increase in the share of female inventors in a research area yields 1.2 percentage points more female-focused patents. Notably, this effect only holds for female-led invention teams. Areas with a greater share of female inventors in supporting roles do not produce more female-focused inventions. For gender to impact the direction of invention, it appears that women must occupy positions of power.