Inventor Data for Research on Migration and Innovation: A Survey and a Pilot

Stefano Breschi, Francesco Lissoni and Gianluca Tarasconi
Additional contact information
Stefano Breschi: CRIOS – Università Bocconi, Milan
Gianluca Tarasconi: CRIOS – Università Bocconi, Milan

No 17, WIPO Economic Research Working Papers from World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division

Abstract: This paper discusses the existing literature on migration and innovation, with special emphasis on empirical studies based on patent and inventor data. Other sources of micro-data are examined, too, for comparative purposes. A pilot database, based on patent filings at the European Patent Office is presented. It contains information on individual inventors, including their country of residence and of origin. Preliminary evidence suggests that immigrant inventors contribute to innovation not only in the US, but also in selected European countries, where they often rank among the most productive individuals. Data on returnee inventors to selected countries of origin suggest the phenomenon to be of limited scale, and highly subject to errors of measurement.

Keywords: immigration; innovation; inventor data; patent data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 O15 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm, nep-mig, nep-sog and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_17.pdf (application/pdf)

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:wip:wpaper:17

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WIPO Economic Research Working Papers from World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Economics and Statistics Division ().