While most countries welcome (and some even subsidise) high-skilled immigrants, there is very limited evidence of their importance for domestic firms. To guide our empirical analysis, we first set up a simple theoretical model to show how foreign experts may impact on the productivity and wages...

This paper contains three important contributions to the literature on international migrations. First, it compiles a new dataset on migration flows (and stocks) and on immigration laws for 14 OECD destination countries and 74 sending countries for each year over the period 1980-2005. Second, it...

Scientists, Technology professionals, Engineers, and Mathematicians (STEM workers) are the fundamental inputs in scientific innovation and technological adoption. Innovation and technological adoption are, in turn, the main drivers of productivity growth in the U.S. In this paper we identify...

This paper explores the relationship between economic openness and income per person using cross-country data. To address endogeneity concerns we extend the instrumental-variables strategy first used by Frankel and Romer (1999). First, we show that bilateral geographic characteristics of...

The paper investigates the determinants of ethnic heterogeneity of the Italian provinces. Among other factors, the paper tests empirically whether gradual improvements in distant communication boost the generation of ethnically heterogeneous provinces. Consequently to easier communication,...

This study explores the importance of knowledge transfer for international technology diffusion by examining ethnic scientific and entrepreneurial communities in the US and their ties to their home countries. US ethnic research communities are quantified by applying an ethnic-name database to...

The paper investigates the determinants of ethnic heterogeneity of the Italian provinces. Among other factors, the paper tests empirically whether gradual improvements in distant communication boost the generation of ethnically heterogeneous provinces. Consequently to easier communication,...

During the second part of the 1990s, the Israeli economy experienced a surge in labour productivity and total factor productivity, which was driven primarily by the manufacturing sector. This surge in productivity coincided with the full absorption and integration into the workforce of highly...

Studies regarding the migrants' impact upon performance variables and in particular upon productivity growth - which is the focus of this study - are few although there has been an increased interest in this area. This study addresses this issue in a cross-country and regional perspective with a...

This paper examines the impact of North-South trade, education, governance and North-South distance, on technology diffusion and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the South, focusing on LAC and East Asia over the 32 years before the Great Recession (1976-2007). Findings are: i) TFP rises...