  We study of millions of scientific, technological, and artistic innovations
and find that the innovation gap faced by women is far from universal. No gap
exists for conventional innovations. Rather, the gap is pervasively rooted in
innovations that combine ideas in unexpected ways - innovations most critical
to scientific breakthroughs. Further, at the USPTO we find that female
examiners reject up to 33 percent more unconventional innovations by women
inventors than do male examiners, suggesting that gender discrimination weakly
explains this innovation gap. Instead, new data indicate that a configuration
of institutional practices explains the innovation gap. These practices
compromise the expertise women examiners need to accurately assess
unconventional innovations and then "over-assign" women examiners to women
innovators, undermining women's innovations. These institutional impediments
negatively impact innovation rates in science but have the virtue of being more
amenable to actionable policy changes than does culturally ingrained gender
discrimination.
