IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hasite/0030.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Immigration & Ideas: What Did Russian Scientists 'Bring' to the US?

Author

Listed:
  • Ganguli, Ina

    (Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics)

Abstract

This paper examines how high-skilled immigrants contribute to knowledge diffusion using a rich dataset of Russian scientists and US citations to Soviet-era publications. Analysis of a panel of US cities and scientific fields shows that citations to Soviet-era work increased significantly with the arrival of immigrants. A difference-in-differences analysis with matched paper-pairs also shows that after Russian scientists moved to the US, citations to their Soviet-era papers increased relative to control papers. Both strategies reveal scientific field-specific effects. Ideas in high-impact papers and papers previously accessible to US scientists were the most likely to "spill over" to natives.

Suggested Citation

  • Ganguli, Ina, 2014. "Immigration & Ideas: What Did Russian Scientists 'Bring' to the US?," SITE Working Paper Series 30, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hasite:0030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hasite/papers/hasite0030.pdf
    File Function: Complete Rendering
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Petra Moser & Alessandra Voena & Fabian Waldinger, 2014. "German Jewish ?migr?s and US Invention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3222-3255, October.
    2. Fabian Waldinger, 2012. "Peer Effects in Science: Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 838-861.
    3. George J. Borjas & Kirk B. Doran, 2021. "The Collapse Of The Soviet Union And The Productivity Of American Mathematicians," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 11, pages 313-373, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Waldinger, Fabian, 2010. "Quality matters: the expulsion of professors and Ph.D. student outcomes in Nazi Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28737, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Fabian Waldinger, 2010. "Quality Matters: The Expulsion of Professors and the Consequences for PhD Student Outcomes in Nazi Germany," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 787-831, August.
    6. Jennifer Hunt & Marjolaine Gauthier-Loiselle, 2010. "How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 31-56, April.
    7. Agrawal, Ajay & Kapur, Devesh & McHale, John & Oettl, Alexander, 2011. "Brain drain or brain bank? The impact of skilled emigration on poor-country innovation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 43-55, January.
    8. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 577-598.
    9. Jasjit Singh & Ajay Agrawal, 2011. "Recruiting for Ideas: How Firms Exploit the Prior Inventions of New Hires," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(1), pages 129-150, January.
    10. Iacus, Stefano & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2009. "cem: Software for Coarsened Exact Matching," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 30(i09).
    11. Kogut, Bruce & Macpherson, J. Muir, 2011. "The mobility of economists and the diffusion of policy ideas: The influence of economics on national policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1307-1320.
    12. Glaeser, Edward L., 1999. "Learning in Cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 254-277, September.
    13. Ivakhnyuk, Irina, 2009. "Russian Migration Policy and Its Impact on Human Development," MPRA Paper 19196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    15. William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln, 2010. "The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and U.S. Ethnic Invention," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 473-508, July.
    16. Matthew Blackwell & Stefano Iacus & Gary King & Giuseppe Porro, 2009. "cem: Coarsened exact matching in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(4), pages 524-546, December.
    17. Card, David, 2001. "Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 22-64, January.
    18. Patricia Cortes, 2008. "The Effect of Low-Skilled Immigration on U.S. Prices: Evidence from CPI Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(3), pages 381-422, June.
    19. Lynne G. Zucker & Michael R. Darby, 2014. "Movement of Star Scientists and Engineers and High-Tech Firm Entry," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 115-116, pages 125-175.
    20. Irina Ivakhnyuk, 2009. "Russian Migration Policy and Its Impact on Human Development," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2009-14, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), revised Apr 2009.
    21. William R. Kerr, 2008. "Ethnic Scientific Communities and International Technology Diffusion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 518-537, August.
    22. Unknown, 1972. "Cover and Contents," Journal of the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 1(1), pages 1-7.
    23. George J. Borjas, 2021. "The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: Reexamining The Impact Of Immigration On The Labor Market," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 9, pages 235-274, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    24. Loet Leydesdorff & Ismael Rafols, 2009. "A global map of science based on the ISI subject categories," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(2), pages 348-362, February.
    25. Stefano Breschi & Francesco Lissoni, 2009. "Mobility of skilled workers and co-invention networks: an anatomy of localized knowledge flows," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 439-468, July.
    26. Weinberg, Bruce A., 2011. "Developing science: Scientific performance and brain drains in the developing world," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 95-104, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gouranga Gopal Das & Sugata Marjit, 2018. "Skill, Innovation and Wage Inequality: Can Immigrants be the Trump Card?," CESifo Working Paper Series 7082, CESifo.
    2. Mohammadi, Ali & Broström, Anders & Franzoni, Chiara, 2015. "Work Force Composition and Innovation: How Diversity in Employees’ Ethnical and Disciplinary Backgrounds Facilitates Knowledge Re-combination," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 413, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    3. Mawussé K. N. Okey, 2017. "Does migration promote industrial development in Africa?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 228-247.
    4. Das, Gouranga Gopal & Marjit, Sugata & Kar, Mausumi, 2020. "The Impact of Immigration on Skills, Innovation and Wages: Education Matters more than where People Come from," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 557-582.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ina Ganguli, 2015. "Immigration and Ideas: What Did Russian Scientists "Bring" to the United States?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 257-288.
    2. William R. Kerr, 2013. "U.S. High-Skilled Immigration, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Approaches and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 19377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    4. Lewis, Ethan & Peri, Giovanni, 2015. "Immigration and the Economy of Cities and Regions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 625-685, Elsevier.
    5. Francesco LISSONI, 2016. "Migration and Innovation Diffusion : An Eclectic Survey," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2016-11, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    6. Nathan, Max, 2013. "The Wider Economic Impacts of High-Skilled Migrants: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512111472 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    9. repec:zbw:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512111472 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ceren Ozgen, 2021. "The economics of diversity: Innovation, productivity and the labour market," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1168-1216, September.
    11. Thomas Kemeny, 2013. "Immigrant Diversity and Economic Development in Cities: A Critical Review," SERC Discussion Papers 0149, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2015_027 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln, 2015. "Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of US Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 147-186.
    15. Bahar, Dany & Choudhury, Prithwiraj & Rapoport, Hillel, 2020. "Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(9).
    16. William R. Kerr, 2010. "Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation," NBER Chapters, in: Cities and Entrepreneurship, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Agarwal, Ruchir & Ganguli, Ina & Gaulé, Patrick & Smith, Geoff, 2023. "Why U.S. immigration matters for the global advancement of science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    18. Toman Barsbai & Hillel Rapoport & Andreas Steinmayr & Christoph Trebesch, 2017. "The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 36-69, July.
    19. George J. Borjas, 2019. "Immigration and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 25836, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Dario Diodato & Andrea Morrison & Sergio Petralia, 2022. "Migration and invention in the Age of Mass Migration [Immigration in American economic history]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 477-498.
    21. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln, 2015. "Firms and the Economics of Skilled Immigration," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 115-152.
    22. Nathan, Max, 2013. "The Wider Economic Impacts of High-Skilled Migrants: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. Christos Kolympiris & Sebastian Hoenen & Peter G. Klein, 2019. "Learning by Seconding: Evidence from National Science Foundation Rotators," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 528-551, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    high skill immigration; citations; innovation; Russia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J40 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - General
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:hasite:0030. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dominick Nilsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sihhsse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.