Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations

Dany Bahar, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Hillel Rapoport ()
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Prithwiraj Choudhury: Harvard Business School - Harvard University

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Abstract: We investigate the relationship between the presence of migrant inventors and the dynamics of innovation in the migrants' receiving countries. We find that countries are 25 to 60% more likely to gain advantage in patenting in certain technologies given a twofold increase in the number of foreign inventors from other nations that specialize in those same technologies. For the average country in our sample, this number corresponds to only 25 inventors and a standard deviation of 135. We deal with endogeneity concerns by using historical migration networks to instrument for stocks of migrant inventors. Our results generalize the evidence of previous studies that show how migrant inventors "import" knowledge from their home countries, which translates into higher patenting in the receiving countries. We interpret these results as tangible evidence of migrants facilitating the technology-specific diffusion of knowledge across nations.

Keywords: Innovation; Migration; Patent; Technology; Knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Published in Research Policy, 2020, 49 (9), ⟨10.1016/j.respol.2020.103947⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations (2020)
Working Paper: Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations (2020)
Working Paper: Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations (2020)
Working Paper: Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations (2020)
Working Paper: Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations (2020)
Working Paper: Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations (2019)
Working Paper: Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations (2019)
Working Paper: Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02973745

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2020.103947

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