On Immigration and Native Entrepreneurship

A new GLO Discussion Paper presents a novel theory that immigrants facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship by being willing and able to invest in new skills.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

Harriet Duleep

GLO Discussion Paper No. 846, 2021

On Immigration and Native EntrepreneurshipDownload PDF
by
Duleep, Harriet & Jaeger, David A. & McHenry, Peter

GLO Fellow Harriet Orcutt Duleep

Author Abstract: We present a novel theory that immigrants facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship by being willing and able to invest in new skills. Immigrants whose human capital is not immediately transferable to the host country face lower opportunity costs of investing in new skills or methods and will be more exible in their human capital investments than observationally equivalent natives. Areas with large numbers of immigrants may therefore lead to more entrepreneurship and innovation, even among natives. We provide empirical evidence from the United States that is consistent with the theory’s predictions.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers)Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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