Immigrant Workers, Entrepreneurs, Firm Exports (and Beyond): Evidence from Italy
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With Massimiliano Bratti, Gianluca Santoni, Patrizia Cella, Marinella Pepe and Francesca Alonzi we examine the impact of immigrant workers and entrepreneurs on exports between 2014 and 2017 using administrative employer-employee data linked with customs data on the population of manufacturing firms in Italy. Focusing on firm-level data enables us to explore the scale at which pro-trade effects manifest, whether firm or local. Our analysis demonstrates that both the stock of immigrants working in a firm and foreign entrepreneurs raise a firm’s export to their countries of origin, with the latter having a larger effect. On the other hand, local immigrant workers and immigrant entrepreneurs do not appear to have sizeable spillover effects on firms’ exports. Interestingly, the pro-trade effect of foreign entrepreneurs extends not only to their countries of origin, but also to the average export destination. Some preliminary results suggest that improved worker productivity in immigrant-owned enterprises may explain some of this increased competitiveness.