Replication of “How much does immigration boost innovation?”

Abstract

Identifying the causal impact of immigration on outcomes commonly involves using a “shift‐share” or Bartik instrument, exploiting country‐specific immigration inflows (shifts) and location specific prior shares for the same countries. New findings suggest that identifying variation may come not from the shifts, as previously believed, but rather from the shares. In this paper, I first replicate Hunt and Gauthier‐Loiselle (HGL) who find skilled immigration increases innovation, and second employ new tests from the shift‐share literature. I find that the results of HGL replicate and hold up well to these new tests.