Political scientists know surprisingly little about the political behavior of inventors, or those who produce new technologies. I therefore merged US patent and campaign contribution (DIME) data to reveal the donation behavior of 30,603 American inventors from 1980 through 2014. Analysis of the data produces three major findings. First, the Democratic Party has made significant inroads among American inventors, but these gains increasingly come from only a few regions and flow to a relatively small number of candidates. Second, deeper geographic trends explain most of the change in aggregate donation patterns. Third, inventors do not strategically donate to candidates outside their own district and, since 2006, inventors increasingly contribute to relatively centrist employer PACs with weak ties to the Democratic Party. These findings suggest that the interaction between market-oriented policy and American electoral institutions may inhibit the formation of broad cross-regional coalitions to support the knowledge economy.

中文翻译：

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美国发明家的政治贡献：3万个案例的证据

政治科学家对发明家或新技术生产者的政治行为知之甚少。因此，我合并了美国专利和竞选捐款 (DIME) 数据，揭示了 1980 年至 2014 年 30,603 名美国发明家的捐赠行为。对数据的分析得出了三个主要发现。首先，民主党在美国发明家中取得了重大进展，但这些成果越来越仅来自少数地区，并且流向了相对较少的候选人。其次，更深层次的地理趋势解释了捐赠总额模式的大部分变化。第三，发明家不会战略性地向自己选区以外的候选人捐款，而且自 2006 年以来，发明家越来越多地向与民主党关系较弱的相对中间派雇主政治行动委员会捐款。这些发现表明，市场导向政策与美国选举机构之间的相互作用可能会抑制支持知识经济的广泛跨区域联盟的形成。