Search This Blog

Monday, July 27, 2009

High-Tech Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Immigrants are critical to the well-being of the U.S. economy. And that most certainly includes immigrant entrepreneurs.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy released a new study by David Hart, Zoltan Acs, and Spencer Tracy, Jr. titled “High-tech Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the United States.”

Among the findings of a survey of “rapidly growing high-impact, high-tech companies” were:

• “We find that about 16% of the companies in our sample had at least one foreign-born person among their founding teams. This estimate is lower than that found in most previous studies of high-tech immigrant entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, our data show that immigrants play a crucial role in this vital economic activity.”

• “Policymakers are rightly concerned that government should sustain a healthy climate for starting and running high-impact, high-tech companies like those in our sample. Immigration policy, as it affects highly educated and highly experienced foreign-born individuals who might be drawn into high-tech entrepreneurship, is an important element of that climate.”


The full study can be read here.

What are the necessary policy measures? Provide broadbased tax and regulatory relief to spur entrepreneurship and investment in general, while implementing immigration reform that opens more doors for legal immigration.

Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

No comments: