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Working Paper on U.S. Immigration and Innovation

Updated: Author: Alina Kanametova

Reference Samples 8 pages Anonymized Access on request

Harvard/Chicago paper on immigration and the rise of American innovation: 8 pages linking immigrants to US invention output.

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About this document

A 2017 working paper that uses US patent records and Census data to study how immigrant inventors relate to American innovation. It examines foreign-born expertise across patent classes, long-run patenting and citation growth from 1940 to 2000, and inventor productivity and wage income. The paper finds broad innovation gains linked to immigrant inventors and a wage gap relative to native-born inventors.

Key points

  • Uses USPTO patents and Federal Census data from 1880-1940 to profile inventors and match them to labor income.
  • Defines foreign-born expertise by combining a country's patent share in a class with the number of migrant inventors from that country.
  • Patent classes with more immigrant inventors between 1880 and 1940 later had more patents and citations between 1940 and 2000.
  • A one-standard-deviation rise in foreign expertise is linked to higher later patents and citations in the class regressions.
  • Immigrant inventors are reported as about 9% more productive over their careers than native-born inventors.
  • Immigrant inventors are reported to have about 5% lower labor income than comparable native-born inventors.
  • The paper notes that immigrant inventors made up 19.6% of inventors in the study period.
  • The paper says the wage gap for immigrant inventors cannot be explained by productivity differences.

What is inside

  1. Introduction
  2. Historical Background
  3. Empirical Results
  4. Conclusion
  5. References

When it helps

This paper serves as background evidence on the macro effect of immigrant inventors on innovation and patent growth. It also provides data-based support for an argument about inventor productivity and labor-market outcomes.

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