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

Arbeitspapier

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12190

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination ; Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers: General ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Entrepreneurship ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights: General ; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives ; Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
• Subject: immigration ; entrepreneur ; innovation ; high-tech ; patent

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Brown, J. David ; Earle, John S. ; Kim, Mee Jung ; Lee, Kyung Min
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/196688
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET