New study: Nearly 40% of US innovation attributed to immigrants

Immigrant inventors are far more productive than native-born scientists in the US, according to a new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Research shows that about 36 percent of innovation output over the past 30 years can be attributed to immigrants. Nearly a quarter of all patents are directly created by foreign-born inventors, whose work also indirectly facilitates new discoveries by US-born scientists, the study said.