An ongoing debate is whether the U.S. should continue its family-based admission system, which favors visas for family members of U.S. citizens and residents, or adopt a more skills-based system, replacing family visas with employment-based visas. In many ways this is a false dichotomy:...

We present a novel theory that immigrants facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship by being willing and able to invest in new skills. Immigrants whose human capital is not immediately transferable to the host country face lower opportunity costs of investing in new skills or methods and will...

An ongoing debate is whether the U.S. should continue its family-based admission system, which favors visas for family members of U.S. citizens and residents, or adopt a more skills-based system, replacing family visas with employment-based visas. In many ways this is a false dichotomy:...

This paper describes the theoretical underpinnings and provides empirical evidence for a model that predicts a positive impact of immigration on entrepreneurial activity. Immigrants, we hypothesize, facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship by being willing and able to invest in new skills. At...

Two issues have taken center stage in the recent debates about U.S. immigration policy: one, illegal immigration and more generally the entrance of poorly educated individuals into the U.S. economy and two, whether the U.S. should continue its family-based admissions system or move towards a...