Via Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution, a paper arging that within the US counties with more diversity produce more and better patents:
We show that innovation in U.S. counties from 1850 to 1940 was propelled by shifts in the local social structure, as captured using the diversity of surnames. Leveraging quasi-random variation in counties’ surnames—stemming from the interplay between historical fluctuations in immigration and local factors that attract immigrants—we find that more diverse social structures increased both the quantity and quality of patents, likely because they spurred interactions among individuals with different skills and perspectives. The results suggest that the free flow of information between diverse minds drives innovation and contributed to the emergence of the U.S. as a global innovation hub.
In the US, surname diversity basically means immigration. So this is yet another piece of evidence that immigrants, especially when they migrate to multi-ethnic centers like New York or Los Angeles, drive innovation and economic progress far more than the native born do. Communities dominated by a single ethinicity, whether that is white, black, or Hispanic, are economic backwaters.
1 comment:
...it's almost as if people from different places in the world have different experiences and worldviews, and that in problem solving you're always more likely to find better solutions when you approach an issue from multiple angles...
/s
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