Working Paper: NBER ID: w19962
Authors: Petra Moser; Alessandra Voena; Fabian Waldinger
Abstract: Historical accounts suggest that Jewish émigrés from Nazi Germany revolutionized U.S. science. To analyze the émigrés' effects on chemical innovation in the U.S. we compare changes in patenting by U.S. inventors in research fields of émigrés with fields of other German chemists. Patenting by U.S. inventors increased by 31 percent in émigré fields. Regressions that instrument for émigré fields with pre-1933 fields of dismissed German chemists confirm a substantial increase in U.S. invention. Inventor-level data indicate that émigrés encouraged innovation by attracting new researchers to their fields, rather than by increasing the productivity of incumbent inventors.
Keywords: German Jewish emigrants; US innovation; patenting; chemistry; immigration
JEL Codes: J61; N12; O3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Attraction of new domestic inventors (O31) | Increase in U.S. patenting (O39) |
| Networks formed by co-inventors of emigrants (D85) | Sustaining and amplifying innovation effects (O36) |
| Arrival of German Jewish emigrants (J11) | Increase in U.S. patenting (O39) |
| Arrival of German Jewish emigrants (J11) | Increase in U.S. patenting (IV estimates) (O39) |