Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société
Article Dans Une Revue Research Policy Année : 2020

Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations

Résumé

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.

Dates et versions

halshs-02973745 , version 1 (21-10-2020)

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Dany Bahar, Prithwiraj Choudhury, Hillel Rapoport. Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations. Research Policy, 2020, 49 (9), ⟨10.1016/j.respol.2020.103947⟩. ⟨halshs-02973745⟩
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