German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention

• Published in: The American economic review Vol. 104; no. 10; pp. 3222 - 3255
• Main Authors: Moser, Petra, Voena, Alessandra, Waldinger, Fabian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nashville American Economic Association 01-10-2014
• Subjects: Antisemitism; Chemical industry; Chemistry; Chemists; Employment; Germany; Immigrants; Incumbents; Innovation; Innovations; Intellectual property; Inventions; Inventories; Inventors; Jews; Mathematicians; Mathematics; Nazi era; Nobel prizes; Noncitizens; Optical character recognition; Passports & visas; Patent pool; Productivity; Regression analysis; Scientists; Technological change; Technological innovation; U.S.A; Universities; United States > US
• ISSN: 0002-8282; 1944-7981
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.10.3222

Historical accounts suggest that Jewish émigrés from Nazi Germany revolutionized US science. To analyze the émigrés' effects on chemical innovation in the United States, we compare changes in patenting by US inventors in research fields of émigrés with fields of other German chemists. Patenting by US inventors increased by 31 percent in émigré fields. Regressions which instrument for émigré fields with pre-1933 fields of dismissed German chemists confirm a substantial increase in US invention. Inventor-level data indicate that émigrés encouraged innovation by attracting new researchers to their fields, rather than by increasing the productivity of incumbent inventors.