Title

The Rise of American Ingenuity: Innovation and Inventors of the Golden Age

Author(s)

Ufuk Akcigit Ufuk Akcigit (University of Chicago)

John Grigsby John Grigsby (University of Chicago)

Tom Nicholas Tom Nicholas (Harvard University)

Abstract

This paper builds on the analysis in Akcigit, Grigsby, and Nicholas (2017) by using U.S. patent and Census data to examine macro and micro-level aspects of the relationship between immigration and innovation. We construct a measure of "foreign born expertise" and show that technology areas where immigrant inventors were prevalent between 1880 and 1940 experienced more patenting and citations between 1940 and 2000. We also show that immigrant inventors were more productive during their life cycle than native born inventors, although they received significantly lower levels of labor income than their native born counterparts. Overall, the contribution of foreign born inventors to US innovation was substantial, but we also find evidence of an immigrant inventor wage-gap that cannot be explained by differentials in productivity.

Creation Date

2017-02

Section URL ID

Paper Number

2017-6

URL

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pu0JAP3TMORHkOJT8DvGZbj0DaW9XaDz/view

File Function

Jel

N11, N12, O31, O40

Keyword(s)

census, demographics, Earnings, growth, innovation, inventors, migration, patents

Suppress

false

Series

13