The Effect of Immigration Policy on Founding Location Choice: Evidence from Canada's Start-up Visa Program / Saerom (Ronnie) Lee, Britta Glennon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lee, Saerom (Ronnie).

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Glennon, Britta.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w31634.

NBER working paper series no. w31634

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2023.

Summary:

To spur entrepreneurship and economic growth, an increasing number of countries have introduced immigration policies that provide visas to skilled entrepreneurs. This paper investigates whether these policies influence the founding location choice of immigrant founders, by leveraging the introduction of Canada's Start-up Visa Program in 2013. We demonstrate that this immigration policy increased the likelihood that U.S.-based immigrants have a start-up in Canada by 69%. Our results show that Asian immigrants (who have a higher representation in Canada than in the U.S.) are disproportionately more likely to migrate to Canada to start their businesses, whereas Hispanic immigrants (who have a smaller representation in Canada than in the U.S.) are less inclined to do so. We also find that this propensity varies with the size of co-ethnic immigrant communities in the origin location. Overall, our study unveils the importance of immigration policies in determining founding location choice and has important implications for countries competing for global talent.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2023.