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The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and US Ethnic Invention

William R. Kerr
Harvard University - Entrepreneurial Management Unit

William Fabius Lincoln
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - College of Literature, Science & the Arts

December 16, 2008

Harvard Business School Entrepreneurial Management Working Paper No. 09-005

Abstract:
This study evaluates the impact of high-skilled immigrants on US technology formation. Specifically, we use reduced-form specifications that exploit large changes in the H-1B visa program. Fluctuations in H-1B admissions levels significantly influence the rate of Indian and Chinese patenting in cities and firms dependent upon the program relative to their peers. Most specifications find weak crowding-in effects or no effect at all for native patenting. Total invention increases with higher admission levels primarily through the direct contributions of ethnic inventors.

Keywords: Innovation, Research and Development, Patents, Scientists, Engineers, Inventors, H-1B, Immigration, Ethnicity, India, China, Endogenous Growth.

JEL Classifications: F15, F22, J44, J61, O31.

Working Paper Series

Date posted: December 17, 2008 ; Last revised: June 02, 2009

Suggested Citation

Kerr, William R. and Lincoln, William Fabius, The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and US Ethnic Invention (December 16, 2008). Harvard Business School Entrepreneurial Management Working Paper No. 09-005. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1316942

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Contact Information

William R. Kerr (Contact Author) Harvard University - Entrepreneurial Management Unit ( email ) Soldiers Field Road Morgan 270C Boston, MA 02163 United States
William Fabius Lincoln University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - College of Literature, Science & the Arts ( email ) United States