Same difference? Minority ethnic inventors, diversity and innovation in the UK

Abstract

Minority ethnic inventors play important roles in US innovation, especially in high-tech regions such as Silicon Valley. Do 'ethnicity-innovation' channels exist elsewhere? Ethnicity could influence innovation via production complementarities from diverse inventor communities, co-ethnic network externalities or individual 'stars'. I explore these issues using new UK patents microdata and a novel name-classification system. UK minority ethnic inventors are spatially concentrated, as in the USA, but have different characteristics reflecting UK-specific geography and history. I find that the diversity of inventor communities helps raise individual patenting, with suggestive influence of East Asian-origin stars. Majority inventors may benefit from multiplier effects.

The Chinese mosaic: Cultural diversity and creative cities

“…Our research provides new evidence in support of the positive impact of cultural diversity on urban innovation that has been found in the USA and European countries (Nathan, ; Niebuhr, ). Thus, this positive impact holds not only for cultural diversity resulting from immigration in developed countries, but also for cultural diversity induced by internal migration in a developing country, China.…”

Immigrant Entrepreneurship

“…These reduced outside options may make immigrants willing to launch a business of any form and venture into riskier domains. A third, more positive, possibility is that the tight social structures for some immigrant groups allow them a group-based capacity to enter into riskier domains and rely on each other, similar to the studies of immigrant entrepreneurial specialization (e.g., Kerr and Mandor¤, 2015).This comparative advantage could be consistent with bene…ts of immigrantgenerated diversity documented by Ottaviano and Peri (2006), Mazzolari and Neumark (2012), Nathan (2015), and similar. Another possibility, to complete a …rst and incomplete list, is that illegal immigration and undocumented workers in immigrant-led …rms have somehow led us to mismeasure some of the growth/survival properties.…”

The wider economic impacts of high-skilled migrants: a survey of the literature for receiving countries

“…Innovation-related research in European countries tends to focus on firm-level analysis. A relevant exception is Nathan (2012b), who looks at minority ethnic inventors in the UK. Using panel data, he finds that the diversity of inventor communities helps raise the level of individual patenting activity, and suggestive evidence that high-patenting minority ethnic inventors, particularly East Asian 'stars' , drive up overall patenting rates.…”