Scientists, Technology professionals, Engineers and Mathematicians (STEM workers) are the fundamental inputs in scientific innovation and technological adoption which, in turn, the main drivers of the productivity growth in the US. During the last thirty years productivity growth appeared to be "college" biased, in that it increased demand and productivity of college educated much more than that of other workers. In this paper we identify STEM workers in the US and we look at the effect of their growth on the growth of wages and employment of college and non-college educated in 219 US cities during the period 1990-2010. In order to identify a supply-driven and heterogenous increase in STEM workers across US cities we use the "dependence" of each city on foreign-born STEM workers in 1980 (or 1970) and we exploit the introduction and the variation (over time and across nationalities) of the H1B visa program directed specifically to allow access into the US to professoional STEM workers.We find that H1B-driven increases in STEM workers in a city were associated with significant increases in wages of college educated natives, (in general as well as STEM). Non-college educated natives, instead, experienced non significant effects on their wages and on their employment. We also find evidence that STEM workers increased the price of housing for college graduates and the specialization in high human capital sectors and high cognitive occupations in US cities. The magnitudes of these estimates imply that STEM workers contributed significantly to total factor productivity growth in the US and across cities and also, but to a lesser extent, to the growth of the skill biased during the 1990-2010 period.

International students have long comprised an important part of U.S. higher education. However, little is known regarding the factors that encourage students from across the world to enroll in U.S. colleges and universities each year. This paper examines the relationship between international enrollment and the openness of the United States' skilled labor market, currently regulated by the H-1B program. Gravity regressions reveal that H-1B visa issuances to a country are positively and significantly related to the number of international students from that country. Causal estimates of the impact of labor market openness are achieved by exploiting a dramatic fall in the H-1B visa cap in October 2003. Triple difference estimates show that the fall in the cap lowered foreign enrollment by 10%. (JEL F22, I21, J11)

This paper studies human capital responses to the availability of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary work authorization and deferral from deportation for undocumented, high-school-educated youth. We use a sample of young adults that migrated to the United States as children to implement a difference-in-difference design that compares noncitizen immigrants (“eligible”) to citizen immigrants (“ineligible”) over time. We find that DACA significantly increased high school attendance and high school graduation rates, reducing the citizen-noncitizen gap in graduation by 40 percent. We also find positive, though imprecise, impacts on college attendance. (JEL H52, I21, I26, J13, J15, J24)

We thank Sarah Turner and two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions. We also received useful comments and suggestions from Nick Bloom, Hilary Hoynes, William Kerr, Enrico Moretti and participants to seminars in UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Universite' Catholique del Louvain, IZA, and the NBER. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Scientists, Technology professionals, Engineers, and Mathematicians (STEM workers) are the fundamental inputs in scientific innovation and technological adoption. Innovation and technological adoption are, in turn, the main drivers of productivity growth in the U.S. In this paper we identify STEM workers in the U.S. and we look at the effect of their growth on the wages and employment of college and non-college educated labor in 219 U.S. cities from 1990 to 2010. In order to identify a supply-driven and heterogenous increase in STEM workers across U.S. cities, we use the dependence of each city on foreign-born STEM workers in 1980 (or 1970) and exploit the introduction and variation (over time and across nationalities) of the H-1B visa program, which expanded access to U.S. labor markets for foreign-born college-educated (mainly STEM) workers. We find that H-1B-driven increases in STEM workers in a city were associated with significant increases in wages paid to both STEM and non-STEM college-educated natives. Non-college educated show no significant wage or employment effect. We also find evidence that STEM workers caused cities to experience higher housing prices for college graduates, increased specialization in high human capital sectors, and a rise in the concentration of natives in cognitive occupations. The magnitudes of these estimates imply that STEM workers contributed significantly to total factor productivity growth in the U.S. and across cities and-to a lesser extent-to the growth in skill-bias between 1990 and 2010.