Immigration and the Diffusion of Technology: The Huguenot Diaspora in Prussia

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hornung, Erik
• 署名单位: Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Max Planck Society
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.1.84
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 84-122
• 关键词: INTERNATIONAL LABOR; HOST COUNTRY; migration; networks; IMPACT; INNOVATION; KNOWLEDGE; education; GROWTH; Europe

摘要

This paper analyzes long-term effects of skilled-worker immigration on productivity for the Huguenot migration to Prussia. In 1685, religiously persecuted French Huguenots settled in Brandenburg-Prussia and compensated for population losses due to plagues during the Thirty Years' War. We combine Huguenot immigration lists from 1700 with Prussian firm-level data on the value of inputs and outputs in 1802 in a unique database to analyze the effects of skilled immigration to places with underused economic potential. Exploiting this settlement pattern in an instrumental-variable approach, we find substantial long-term effects of Huguenot settlement on the productivity of textile manufactories.