Kauffman Researchers Look at Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Growthology—an arm of Kansas City’s Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, focusing on entrepreneurial research—has released a report on immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States.

The report says two things with great certainty: 1) America’s immigrants tend to be more entrepreneurial than the native-born population, 2) New and young businesses create nearly all of America’s annual net new jobs.

Which leads Growthology to this conclusion, “If you want job creation, you want entrepreneurs. And if you want entrepreneurs, a good bet is that you’ll find them among immigrants.”

These statistics are offered as evidence:

• More than half of America’s privately held firms valued at $1 billion or more had at least one immigrant co-founder.
• About one-quarter of the engineering and technology companies started in the United States between 2006-2012 had at least one key founder who was an immigrant.

Noting that immigrants from developing nations are more likely to be self-employed, Growthology points out that it is immigrants from developed nations with good human development index numbers who are more likely to be self-employed as entrepreneurs.

In order to take advantage of the economic benefits it sees in entrepreneurship, Growthology recommends that the United States create a startup visa that will allow immigrants with entrepreneurial dreams to pursue them here in America. Fifteen other countries have created such startup visas.

While stating confidently that “immigrant entrepreneurs greatly contribute to economic growth and innovation in the U.S.,” the report also adds, “There is less evidence in terms of their contribution to job growth.”

The report doesn’t claim to know exactly why immigrants are more likely to become entrepreneurs but it does offer some insight from an India-born entrepreneur, who attributes it to “out-of-the-box” thinking, which he says is natural from someone who is “out-of-the-box.”