IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATION IN THE U.S. HIGH-TECH SECTOR

J. David Brown, John Earle, Mee Jung Kim and Kyung Min Lee

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: We estimate differences in innovation behavior between foreign versus U.S.-born entrepreneurs in high-tech industries. Our data come from the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, a random sample of firms with detailed information on owner characteristics and innovation activities. We find uniformly higher rates of innovation in immigrant-owned firms for 15 of 16 different innovation measures; the only exception is for copyright/trademark. The immigrant advantage holds for older firms as well as for recent start-ups and for every level of the entrepreneur’s education. The size of the estimated immigrant-native differences in product and process innovation activities rises with detailed controls for demographic and human capital characteristics but falls for R&D and patenting. Controlling for finance, motivations, and industry reduces all coefficients, but for most measures and specifications immigrants are estimated to have a sizable advantage in innovation.

Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2019-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-mig, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2019/CES-WP-19-06.pdf First version, 2019 (application/pdf)
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Related works:
Chapter: Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the US High-Tech Sector (2019)
Working Paper: Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the U.S. High-Tech Sector (2019)
Working Paper: Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the U.S. High-Tech Sector (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:19-06

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