Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the U.S. High-Tech Sector

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

No 25565, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

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.

JEL-codes: F22 F61 F66 J15 J6 L26 O3 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-ino, nep-lab, nep-mig, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Published as Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the US High-Tech Sector , J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Mee Jung Kim, Kyung Min Lee. in The Roles of Immigrants and Foreign Students in US Science, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship , Ganguli, Kahn, and MacGarvie. 2020

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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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