What is the US Comparative Advantage in Entrepreneurship? Evidence from Israeli Migration to the United States.
Prof. Annamaria Conti,
This paper investigates underlying sources of the US entrepreneurial ecosystem's comparative advantage by assessing the benefits Israeli technology startups derive from migrating to the US. To address positive sorting into migration we adopt three complementary approaches, which include examining exogenous institutional constraints on the startups' ability to migrate, estimating a double-LASSO regression, and exploiting within-mover variation of performance outcomes. We show that migrants raise larger funding amounts, become more likely to apply for a trademark and to be acquired than non-migrants. Conditional on an acquisition, migrants also achieve a higher transaction value. However, they hold as many patents as non-migrants. We conclude that the US entrepreneurial ecosystem’s comparative advantage vis-à-vis other innovative economies, such as Israel, arises from a multitude of sources producing sizeable gains for startups. These sources are investor availability, a large consumer market, and a developed market for acquisitions.
About the speaker
Annamaria Conti is Associate Professor of Strategy at HEC, University of Lausanne. Prior to that, she was Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at the Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. She conducts research in the fields of entrepreneurship and economics of science. In the field of entrepreneurship, Dr. Conti has examined the signaling value of patents, the role of R&D grants in spurring innovation by new ventures, and the monitoring capital of venture capitalists. In the field of economics of science, Professor Conti has investigated cohort and gender effects on graduate students’ placement. Her research has been published in journals like Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy, and Journal of Economics & Management Strategy. Dr. Conti won a number of research awards, including the 2018 Brady Family Award for Faculty Research Excellence, the DRUID Young Scholar Best Paper Award, and the REER Conference best junior paper.
Venue: 0.16/0.17
Date: 11 April 2019
Time: 12:00 - 13:00 CEST
