German Jewish émigrés and US invention

Petra Moser, Alessandra Voena and Fabian Waldinger

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Historical accounts suggest that Jewish émigrés from Nazi Germany revolutionized US science. To analyze the émigrés' effects on chemical innovation in the United States, we compare changes in patenting by US inventors in research fields of émigrés with fields of other German chemists. Patenting by US inventors increased by 31 percent in émigré fields. Regressions which instrument for émigré fields with pre-1933 fields of dismissed German chemists confirm a substantial increase in US invention. Inventor-level data indicate that émigrés encouraged innovation by attracting new researchers to their fields, rather than by increasing the productivity of incumbent inventors.

JEL-codes: J15 L65 N62 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-10-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (86)

Published in American Economic Review, 1, October, 2014, 104(10), pp. 3222 - 3255. ISSN: 0002-8282

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Related works:
Journal Article: German Jewish ?migr?s and US Invention (2014)
Working Paper: German Jewish Emigres and US Invention (2014)
Working Paper: German-Jewish Emigres and U.S. Invention (2014)
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