Precocious inventors: early patenting success and lifetime inventive performance

Precocious inventors have a higher inventive productivity during their remaining career. Inventors who have their first patent either applied for extraordinarily fast or a first patent of especially high quality are regarded as precocious. This paper systematically includes individual and employer characteristics that can drive career productivity beside an early patenting success to reveal the true productivity effect of precociousness. We show that early patenting success reveals dimensions of inventive ability that are not captured in individual characteristics that are predetermined at the start of the career such as the school education level. The favourable work environment precocious inventors enjoyed also has a relatively low explanatory value for career productivity. Precocious inventors also do not benefit from cumulative advantage. Although also rival firms can use early patenting success as indicator for a high career productivity, early employers can retain a high share of their precocious inventors. We propose several reasons for this surprising phenomenon.