Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 15

The fifteenth volume of Innovation Policy and the Economy is the first to focus on a single theme: high-skilled immigration to the United States. The first paper is the product of a long-term research effort on the impact of immigration to the United States of Russian mathematicians beginning around 1990 as the Soviet Union collapsed. The authors find declines in the research productivity of American mathematicians exposed to the immigrants and shifts by some Americans toward less competitive areas of mathematics. The second paper describes how obtaining a degree from US undergraduate college or university can open an important pathway for immigrants to participate in the US labor market in IT occupations. The third paper considers the changing nature of post-doctoral positions in science departments; these positions are disproportionately held by immigrant researchers. The fourth paper considers the role of US firms in high-skilled immigration, reviewing the legal and economic reasons for the importance of large, high-tech firms for high-skilled immigration programs like the H-1B visa. The last paper describes how strong growth in global scientific and technological knowledge production has reduced the United States’ share of world scientific activity, increased the immigrant proportion of scientists and engineers at US universities and firms, and fostered cross-border collaborations for US scientists.