Towards Measuring Disruptive Innovation Across Countries
Econometrics
2026-03-19 v1
Abstract
The CD index is a widely used measure of disruptive inventions. Most studies compute it using USPTO data. This creates a puzzle because the US appears less disruptive than European and Asian countries. We show that this largely stems from missing international citations. Using a global citation network, we quantify and correct this bias. The disruptiveness advantage of non-US inventors drops by 64% to 148% of the US baseline mean. The US emerges as a disruption leader over Europe, with Asia's advantage substantially reduced. Globally integrated citation data are essential for credible measurement of disruptive innovation in international contexts.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.17881,
title = {Towards Measuring Disruptive Innovation Across Countries},
author = {Christian Rutzer and Dragan Filimonovic and Jeffrey T. Macher and Rolf Weder},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.17881},
year = {2026}
}