Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/196688 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12190
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
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.
Subjects: 
immigration
entrepreneur
innovation
high-tech
patent
JEL: 
F22
J15
J60
J61
L26
O15
O30
O31
O32
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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