US Immigrants Generate 36% of Nation’s Innovation, Study Finds
- Foreign-born inventors ‘substantially’ more productive: study
- Immigrants more likely to collaborate than US-born scientists
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Immigrant inventors in the US are “substantially” more productive than native-born scientists, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
About 36% of the innovative output of the past three decades can be attributed to immigrants — who make up 16% of the country’s inventors, the paper concludes. Foreign-born inventors are directly behind almost a quarter of all patents, and their work indirectly contributes to additional findings by US-born scientists.