American Economic Review Vol. 104 No. 1 2014
Immigration and the Diffusion of Technology: The Huguenot Diaspora in Prussia
Abstract
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.
- DOI
- 10.1257/aer.104.1.84
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 84-122
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref