Birthplace Diversity and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Us States in the Post-World War Ii Period
利用1960-2010年美国各州面板数据，研究发现高技能移民的出生地多样性通过技能互补促进经济增长，低技能多样性影响不显著。
Abstract This paper empirically investigates the impact of birthplace diversity on economic growth. We use panel data on US states over the 1960–2010 period. This rich data set allows us to better deal with endogeneity issues and to conduct a large set of robustness checks. Our results suggest that diversity among college-educated immigrants positively affects economic growth. We provide converging evidence pointing at the existence of skill complementarities between workers trained in different countries. These synergies result in better labor market outcomes for native workers and in higher productivity in the R&D sector. The gains from diversity are maximized when immigrants originate from economically or culturally distant countries (but not both), and when they acquired part of their secondary education abroad and their college education in the USA. Overall, a 10% increase in high-skilled diversity raises GDP per capita by about 6%. On the contrary, low-skilled diversity has insignificant effects.