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1. Does Birthplace Diversity affect Economic Complexity? Cross-country Evidence

Author:
Dany Bahar, Hillel Rapoport, and Riccardo Turati
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
We empirically investigate the relationship between a country’s economic complexity and the diversity in the birthplaces of its immigrants. Our cross-country analysis suggests that birthplace diversity is strongly and positively associated with economic complexity. This holds particularly for diversity among highly educated migrants and for countries at intermediate levels of economic complexity. The results are robust to accounting for previous trends in birthplace diversity as well as to using alternatives diversity measures. We address endogeneity concerns by instrumenting diversity through predicted stocks from a pseudo-gravity model as well as from a standard shift-share approach. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that birthplace diversity boosts economic complexity by increasing the diversification of the host country’s export basket.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, Multiculturalism, Immigrants, Diversity, and Economic Complexity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations

Author:
Hillel Rapoport, Prithwiraj Choudhury, and Dany Bahar
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
We investigate the relationship between the presence of migrant inventors and the dynamics of innovation in the migrants’ receiving countries. We find that countries are 25 to 50 percent more likely to gain advantage in patenting in certain technologies given a twofold increase in the number of foreign inventors from other nations that specialize in those same technologies. For the average country in our sample this number corresponds to only 25 inventors and a standard deviation of 135. We deal with endogeneity concerns by using historical migration networks to instrument for stocks of migrant inventors. Our results generalize the evidence of previous studies that show how migrant inventors "import" knowledge from their home countries which translate into higher patenting. We complement our results with micro-evidence showing that migrant inventors are more prevalent in the first bulk of patents of a country in a given technology, as compared to patents filed at later stages. We interpret these results as tangible evidence of migrants facilitating the technology-specific diffusion of knowledge across nations.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, Migration, Science and Technology, Migrant Workers, and Knowledge Economy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Migration and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Effect of Returning Refugees on Export Performance in the Former Yugoslavia

Author:
Dany Bahar, Hillel Rapoport, Cem Özgüzel, and Andreas Hauptmann
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
During the early 1990s Germany offered temporary protection to over 600,000 Yugoslavian refugees fleeing war. By 2000, many had been repatriated. We exploit this natural experiment to investigate the role of migrants in post-conflict reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia, using exports as outcome. Using confidential social security data to capture intensity of refugee workers to German industries –and exogenous allocation rules for asylum seekers within Germany as instrument– we find an elasticity of exports to return migration between 0.08 to 0.24. Our results are stronger in knowledge-intensive industries and for workers in occupations intensive in analytical and managerial skills.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, International Political Economy, Migration, Refugee Issues, Refugees, and Exports
Political Geography:
Europe, Yugoslavia, and Germany