A central driver of economic growth is new technology. Gaia Dossi and Davide Coluccia show how migrants from Britain to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century not only brought new ideas with them but helped US innovations spread to the UK
The diffusion of new technologies across countries is a key driver of productivity growth and economic progress. Yet surprisingly, little is known about how technology moves across borders. Our research provides new evidence on the importance of one such channel: out-migration. We show that migration can help transfer knowledge and innovation from migrants' destination countries back to their countries of origin - a phenomenon we define as return innovation.
Davide M. Coluccia and Gaia Dossi
4 April 2025
LSE Politics and Policy
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/how-emigration-shapes-the-diffusion-of-new-technologies/
This work is published under POID and the CEP's Growth programme.