If you want more income inequality, you should try to attract more innovators to your state. If you want less income inequality, you should try to attract more lobbyists.

Innovation is a major cause of growing income inequality, according to a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study shows that states with a higher number of patents per person have higher levels of inequality. Innovation, the study says, is responsible for 17 percent of the increase in the richest 1 percent’s income share between 1975-2010. The amount of innovation in a given state does not appear to affect other income levels.