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Working Paper on Immigrant Entrepreneurship

Updated: Author: Alina Kanametova

Reference Samples 69 pages Anonymized Access on request

Research paper on immigrant entrepreneurship: 69 pages documenting immigrant business impact, used as supporting petition evidence.

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About this document

A Harvard Business School working paper on immigrant entrepreneurship using Census Bureau administrative microdata. It studies immigrant-founded firms from 1995-2008, comparing their entry, survival, employment growth, payroll growth, VC-backed activity, and age-at-arrival patterns against native-founded firms. The paper also describes the construction and limits of a longitudinal data platform built from LEHD, LBD, Census, and external VC/IPO sources.

Key points

  • Uses restricted-access Census Bureau data to build a longitudinal platform with millions of observations.
  • Covers 1992-2008 in the data platform and trend estimates mainly for 1995-2008.
  • Estimates 24% of entrepreneurs in 11 states are immigrants, rising from 17% in 1995 to 27% in 2008.
  • For VC-financed firms in the focal states, the immigrant share reaches 30% in 2005.
  • About 2% of immigrants start a business over three years; about 0.1% start a VC-backed firm.
  • Immigrant-founded businesses show stronger employment growth over three- and six-year horizons.
  • The paper finds no payroll-growth advantage and may see lower-wage job growth for immigrant-founded firms.
  • Immigrants arriving by age 18 show stronger growth patterns than those arriving as adults.

What is inside

  1. Abstract
  2. 1 Introduction
  3. 2 Previous Literature on Immigrant Entrepreneurs
  4. 3 Census Bureau Data and Measurement
  5. 3.1 Data Platform

When it helps

Supports evidence about immigrant entrepreneurship rates, firm growth, and VC-backed activity in a broader immigration-entrepreneurship record. It also serves as background material for a data-platform explanation in a case centered on immigrant founders.

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