Through an inventor survey, we find substantial error in tracking mobility of engineers and scientists by patents. These errors cause misclassification of mobility -- false positives (wrongly recording change of employer), and false negatives (failing to record change of employer). Errors are...

Through an inventor survey, we find substantial error in patent-based career histories of engineers and scientists due to contract R&D, mergers and acquisitions, and organization policy and name change. By contrast, online career profiles provide more accurate histories. Patent histories cause...