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Zorina Khan

Professor of Economics, Bowdoin College

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Personal Details

Prof. Khan specializes in law and economic history, with a focus on Europe and the United States. An award-winning author, her research has helped to pioneer an entirely new field, the cliometrics (or quantitative economic history) of intellectual property and technological change.

Her first book, The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790-1920 (Cambridge University Press and NBER), received the Alice Hanson Jones Biennial Prize for outstanding work in North American economic history.  This monograph analyzes the sources of U.S. technological leadership, and highlights the critical role of democratic open-access intellectual property institutions in promoting broad-based creativity and increases in overall social welfare.

Her second book, Inventing Ideas: Patents, Prizes, and the Knowledge Economy (Oxford University Press), was also awarded the Alice Hanson Jones Biennial Prize for outstanding work in North American economic history.

Inventing Ideas shows how and why the United States overtook other countries to become the global leader in innovation.  The extensive empirical analysis provides a definitive micro-foundation for macroeconomic endogenous growth models.  The results show how top-down innovation systems, in which elites, state administrators, or panels make key economic decisions about prizes, rewards and the allocation of resources, proved to be ineffective and unproductive. By contrast, markets in patented ideas increased the scale and scope of new technologies, fostered diversity and inclusiveness, generated greater knowledge spillovers, and benefited the wider population.

Current book projects include Women in the Republic of Enterprise, an exploration of women’s entrepreneurship and innovation.  She also empirically assesses gender differences in shareholding, wealth and investment, corporate governance, and the role of family networks in the mobilization of financial capital during early industrialization.

Education and Appointments

Prof. Khan holds a  B.Sc. (First Class Honours) in Economics, Sociology, and Statistics from the University of Surrey in England; an M.A. in Economics from McMaster University in Canada; and a Ph.D. in Economics from UCLA.

She is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); and was a Hoover National Fellow at Stanford University. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, Senior Fellow at the Lemelson Center, and Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Australian National University; as well as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, NYU Law School, UC Berkeley School of Law, UCLA School of Law, Harvard University, and Stanford University. The NBER awarded her the prestigious biennial Griliches Fellowship for outstanding empirical research.

Prof. Khan has made extensive presentations to academic, professional, and general audiences throughout North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

Curriculum Vitae

Zorina Khan Resume 2022

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Recent Posts

  • Notable Women Inventors in Britain February 21, 2023
  • The Mystery of the Missing Minority Millionairess February 1, 2023
  • A Pioneering Black Woman Patent Attorney February 1, 2023
  • Thomas Edison and the Bowdoin Inventors November 15, 2022
  • A Hallowe’en Debate: Diversity and Exclusion October 13, 2022
  • Who was the First U.S. Economics Professor? Samuel Newman, of Bowdoin College September 17, 2022
  • Old School? Apprenticeships in the 21st Century August 16, 2022
  • In Search of Hetty Green: Self-Made Women Millionaires July 12, 2022
  • Patent Waivers (or “Don’t know much about history…”) June 17, 2022
  • Is Technology a Race? Patents and National Security May 23, 2022
  • Hanami: Cherry Blossom Time, in Perpetuity April 10, 2022
  • Banking on Women March 2, 2022
  • Notable Women Inventors of Maine February 6, 2022
  • Back to School for the “Spring” Semester (1861) January 14, 2022
  • Looking Backward: From 5G to the Telegraph December 1, 2021
  • U.S. Patents: A Play in 10 Million Acts November 21, 2021
  • Crypt-ic Tales October 31, 2021
  • Women and Wealth in the New Gilded Age October 23, 2021
  • Travelling Light October 4, 2021
  • Patent Priority: the First Woman Patent Lawyer September 14, 2021
  • Publish and Perish September 10, 2021
  • Reading on Location August 27, 2021
  • Copyrighting the Cultural Revolution in China and America August 26, 2021
  • The (New) Cultural Revolution in China August 23, 2021
  • Women and Innovation in Developing Countries August 2, 2021
  • Who’s Afraid of Standard Oil? July 31, 2021
  • Are Patents Monopolies? July 28, 2021
  • Between the Covers July 27, 2021
  • An Essay in Idleness July 27, 2021

Categories

  • A Few of my Favourite Things
  • Antitrustworthy
  • Economics of/for The Common Good
  • Life on the Margin
  • Of Patents and Prizes
  • Old News: Bowdoin Then and Now
  • Women in the Republic of Enterprise

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Notable Women Inventors in Britain

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