Technological innovation boosted by US immigration from India
July 16 2010 by Liam Clifford
A Harvard Business School report claims that Indian and Chinese people living in the US have contributed significantly to technological innovation in the country.
The study has recently been published in the Journal of Labor Economics
and claims that the number of patents filed by people with Indian and
Chinese names increases within cities and firms that are reliant on US
work visa holders.
The report specifically looks at areas in which many H-1B work visas are
issued. These visas are used by firms to import workers with specialist
skills from abroad. They are particularly popular among technology,
engineering and IT firms.
The report also found that the number of patents filed by people with
Anglo-Saxon names (which suggests US-born workers) did not fall in areas
of high H-1B use.
The report explained, "We conclude that total invention increased with
higher [H-1B] admissions primarily through the direct contributions of
immigrant inventors, we are also able to rule out displacement of native
workers."
As patent filings do not include the inventor’s nationality, the report
authors used an algorithm to predict nationality based on names. 
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