Scientific Talent and Firm Growth: Evidence from Scientific Breakthroughs

This paper investigates the impact of corporate scientists on firm growth following scientific breakthroughs. Utilizing a bibliographic database of 258 million papers and a text-embedding tool, I develop a measure of corporate scientific human capital. By analyzing three major university-driven scientific breakthroughs, I find that firms with core technologies related to these breakthroughs perform better afterward. The impact is more pronounced for firms with substantial pre-existing scientific human capital. Corporate scientists add value through knowledge transfer, leading to more patents, higher-impact patents, and earlier adoption of related science post-breakthrough. This study highlights the crucial role of corporate scientists in bridging basic science with industrial innovation in an economy increasingly relying on intangible assets and human capital.