Does Birthplace Diversity affect Economic Complexity? Cross-country Evidence

Dany Bahar, Hillel Rapoport () and Riccardo Turati

Working Papers from CEPII research center

Abstract: We empirically investigate the relationship between a country’s economic complexity and the diversity in the birthplaces of its immigrants. Our cross-country analysis suggests that birthplace diversity is strongly and positively associated with economic complexity. This holds particularly for diversity among highly educated migrants and for countries at intermediate levels of economic complexity. The results are robust to accounting for previous trends in birthplace diversity as well as to using alternatives diversity measures. We address endogeneity concerns by instrumenting diversity through predicted stocks from a pseudo-gravity model as well as from a standard shift-share approach. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that birthplace diversity boosts economic complexity by increasing the diversification of the host country’s export basket.

Keywords: Economic Complexity; Birthplace Diversity; Immigration; Growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 O31 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity? Cross-country Evidence (2020)
Working Paper: Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity? Cross-country Evidence (2020)
Working Paper: Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity? Cross-Country Evidence (2020)
Working Paper: Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity? Cross-Country Evidence (2019)
Working Paper: Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity ? Cross-Country Evidence (2019)
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