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Title: How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2008
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Abstract: We measure the extent to which skilled immigrants increase innovation in the United States by exploringindividual patenting behavior as well as state-level determinants of patenting. The 2003 National Surveyof College Graduates shows that immigrants patent at double the native rate, and that this is entirelyaccounted for by their disproportionately holding degrees in science and engineering. These data implythat a one percentage point rise in the share of immigrant college graduates in the population increasespatents per capita by 6%. This could be an overestimate of immigration's benefit if immigrant inventorscrowd out native inventors, or an underestimate if immigrants have positive spill-overs on inventors.Using a 1950-2000 state panel, we show that natives are not crowded out by immigrants, and that immigrantsdo have positive spill-overs, resulting in an increase in patents per capita of about 15% in responseto a one percentage point increase in immigrant college graduates. We isolate the causal effect by instrumentingthe change in the share of skilled immigrants in a state with the initial share of immigrant high schooldropouts from Europe, China and India. In both data sets, the positive impacts of immigrant post-collegegraduates and scientists and engineers are larger than for immigrant college graduates.
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Authors: Gauthier-Loiselle, Marjolaine; Hunt, Jennifer
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Publication Number: 14312
Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research
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Publisher Location: Cambridge, MA
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Aging and Retirement, Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration
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