Skilled Immigration and Innovation: Evidence from Enrollment Fluctuations in U.S. Doctoral Programs

Ahmed Mobarak, Keith Maskus and Eric Stuen

No 7709, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We study the contribution of foreign science and engineering talent to the creation of new knowledge in the U.S. economy using panel data on 2300 science and engineering (S&E) departments at 100 large American universities from 1973 to 1998. We use macroeconomic shocks and policy changes in source countries that differentially affect enrollments across fields and universities to isolate exogenous variation in the supply of students at specific departments. Both foreign and domestic graduate students are central inputs into knowledge creation, and the marginal foreign student contributes more to the production of scientific publications and citations. A 10% decrease in the foreign share of doctoral students lowers S&E research output at U.S. universities by 5-6%. A theoretical model of university admissions and scholarships helps us infer the productivity effects of student quality, and econometric results indicate that any visa restrictions limiting entry of high-quality foreign students is most costly for U.S. innovation. Increased diversity appears to be the primary mechanism by which foreign students improve research outcomes. The impact of more restrictive immigration policies depends on how they affect the quality margin and diversity of incoming foreigners.

Keywords: Foreign graduate students; High-skilled immigration; Immigration; Innovation; Visa policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P33 Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7709 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7709

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7709

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().