281. Does Birthplace Diversity affect Economic Complexity? Cross-country Evidence
- Author:
- Dany Bahar, Hillel Rapoport, and Riccardo Turati
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
- Abstract:
- We empirically investigate the relationship between a country’s economic complexity and the diversity in the birthplaces of its immigrants. Our cross-country analysis suggests that birthplace diversity is strongly and positively associated with economic complexity. This holds particularly for diversity among highly educated migrants and for countries at intermediate levels of economic complexity. The results are robust to accounting for previous trends in birthplace diversity as well as to using alternatives diversity measures. We address endogeneity concerns by instrumenting diversity through predicted stocks from a pseudo-gravity model as well as from a standard shift-share approach. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that birthplace diversity boosts economic complexity by increasing the diversification of the host country’s export basket.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, Multiculturalism, Immigrants, Diversity, and Economic Complexity
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus