The Agglomeration of US Ethnic Inventors
41 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2008
There are 2 versions of this paper
The Agglomeration of US Ethnic Inventors
The Agglomeration of Us Ethnic Inventors
Date Written: July 17, 2008
Abstract
The ethnic composition of US inventors is undergoing a significant transformation - with deep impacts for the overall agglomeration of US innovation. This study applies an ethnic-name database to individual US patent records to explore these trends with greater detail. The contributions of Chinese and Indian scientists and engineers to US technology formation increase dramatically in the 1990s. At the same time, these ethnic inventors became more spatially concentrated across US cities. The combination of these two factors helps stop and reverse long-term declines in overall inventor agglomeration evident in the 1970s and 1980s. The heightened ethnic agglomeration is particularly evident in industry patents for high-tech sectors, and similar trends are not found in institutions constrained from agglomerating (e.g., universities, government).
Keywords: Agglomeration, Innovation, Research and Development, Patents, Scientists, Engineers, Inventors, Ethnicity, Immigration
JEL Classification: F15, F22, J44, J61, O31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Ethnic Scientific Communities and International Technology Diffusion
By William Kerr
-
Do Foreign Students Crowd Out Native Students from Graduate Programs?
-
America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Part I
By Vivek Wadhwa, Annalee Saxenian, ...
-
The Ethnic Composition of US Inventors
By William Kerr
-
The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and US Ethnic Invention
-
The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1b Visa Reforms and Us Ethnic Invention