Examines how immigration policy impacts patenting in US counties, suggesting significant technological decline.
The circulation of talent is threatened by the backlash against immigration and the resulting tightening of immigration policies. In this paper, we focus on the impact of the Quota Act of 1921–4 in the USA on the patenting of US counties. Using a unique dataset of historical patents, we show that counties-technologies most affected by the policy experienced a sharp decline in patenting. Our results complement the existing evidence in three ways: (1) we show that the policy had a remarkable geographical dimension, (2) the decline was also strong for breakthroughs, and (3) we generalize previous work focusing on scientists.
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Cornejo-Costas et al. (2026) studied this question.
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