German Jewish ?migr?s and US Invention

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