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Getting Schooled: The Role of Universities in Attracting Immigrant Entrepreneurs

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Abstract

We study immigrant founders of venture-capital backed firms using a new and detailed data set that we assemble on the backgrounds of founders. Immigrant founders have been critical to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, accounting for roughly 20% of all venture capital-backed founders over the past 30 years. We document the channels through which immigrant founders arrive in the United States and how those channels have changed over time. Higher education has served as the primary entry channel for immigrant founders. The share of foreign-educated immigrant founders who initially arrive for work has decreased over time, while the share of immigrant founders with undergraduate education in the United States has increased over time. Immigrant founders are likely to start their companies in the state in which they were educated, leading to potentially large local economic benefits associated with attracting foreign students. The results of this paper have important policy implications for the supply of entrepreneurial talent and efforts to promote entrepreneurial ecosystems.

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  • Natee Amornsiripanitch & Paul Gompers & George Hu & Kaushik Vasudevan, 2022. "Getting Schooled: The Role of Universities in Attracting Immigrant Entrepreneurs," Working Papers 22-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:94591
    DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2022.19
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    Cited by:

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    3. Blanco,Christian & Meneses,Francisco Jalles & Villamizar-Chaparro,Mateo, 2022. "Why Student Aid Matters ? Roadblocks to the Transition into Higher Education forForced Migrants in Chile," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10104, The World Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    entrepreneurship; venture capital; immigration; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production

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