The polyphony: Historical migration and contemporary innovation

Abstract:

This paper studies the impacts of the historical influx of inter-provincial immigrants in a prefecture on contemporary innovation in China. To explore the causal effect, we exploit both the provincial variation in the migration influx and the temporal variation in the main road network expansion. The results indicate that prefectures with more historical migrant influx persistently produce higher number of patents, own more innovative firms and cultivate more academicians nowadays. Mechanism analysis suggests that the influx of migrants introduced diversity and competition into the local area, fostered open attitudes towards new ideas and placed a greater emphasis on education, ultimately resulting in a “polyphony” effect. To rule out the influence of inner migration in China in recent decades, we present evidence that this effect has already appeared in the early stage of modern science diffusion in early 20th century.  

报告时间：2024年4月15日，下午2:00        

线下地点：经济乐动(中国)6-210会议室

主办单位：乐动、浙江财经大学数量经济研究中心

嘉宾简介：

陈媛媛，上海财经大学经济乐动(中国)讲席教授，经济乐动(中国)副院长，Boston College经济学博士。教育部青年长江学者，社科重大项目首席专家。长期从事劳动经济学，尤其是关于流动儿童的相关研究。其研究成果发表于PNAS，Journal of Population Economics，Journal of Comparative Economics,《经济研究》、《管理世界》、《经济学（季刊）》等国内外一流经济学期刊。主持多项国家自然科学基金及上海市浦江人才计划。