US immigrants generate 36% of nation's innovation, finds NBER study

Immigrant inventors in the US are “substantially” more productive than native-born scientists, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
 

About 36% of the innovative output of the past three decades can be attributed to immigrants — who make up 16% of the country’s inventors, the paper concludes. Foreign-born inventors are directly behind almost a quarter of all patents, and their work indirectly contributes to additional findings by US-born scientists.

“Over a third of US innovation can be attributed to this source, highlighting the importance of diversity, of combining inventors with different knowledge and backgrounds to push