A 2012 ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEARMany of the United States' most innovative entrepreneurs have been immigrants, from Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, and Charles Pfizer to Sergey Brin, Vinod Khosla, and Elon Musk. Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies and one-quarter of all new small...

The founders of the United States considered intellectual property worthy of a special place in the Constitution - "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." In...

This purpose of this research was to assess the contribution of skilled immigrants in the creation of engineering and technology businesses and intellectual property in the United States. We found there was at least one immigrant key founder in 25.3% of all engineering and technology companies...

Immigrants have historically provided one of America's greatest competitive advantages. They have come to the United States largely to work and have played a major role in the country's recent growth. Between 1990 and 2007, the proportion of immigrants in the U.S. labor force increased from 9.3...