Immigration and Entrepreneurship in the United States

Immigration is often viewed as expanding the labor supply and creating greater competition for domestic workers. But immigrants may also play important roles in innovation, including starting new firms, that may both drive productivity growth and expand labor demand. This paper uses newly available U.S. administrative data to study the role of immigrants in entrepreneurship. We ask how often immigrants start companies, how many jobs these firms create, and how often these firms appear in high-tech sectors and achieve explosive growth. The findings suggest that immigrants are net “job creators” that raise the wages of domestic workers, rather than reduce them.