Historical accounts suggest that the arrival of German Jewish émigrés who fled the Nazi regime revolutionized U.S. science and innovation. This paper presents the first systematic analysis of the émigrés' effects on U.S. innovation. Difference-in-differences analyses compare changes in...

Historical accounts suggest that Jewish émigrés from Nazi Germany revolutionized U.S. science. To analyze the émigrés' effects on chemical innovation in the U.S. we compare changes in patenting by U.S. inventors in research fields of émigrés with fields of other German chemists. Patenting...