Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your High-Skilled Labor: H-1B Lottery Outcomes and Entrepreneurial Success

Stephen G. Dimmock, Jiekun Huang, Scott J. Weisbenner

NBER Working Paper No. 26392
Issued in October 2019
NBER Program(s):Corporate Finance Program, Labor Studies Program, Public Economics Program, Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program

We study how access to high-skill labor affects the outcomes of start-up firms. We obtain exogenous variation in firms’ ability to access skilled labor by using win rates in H-1B visa lotteries. Relative to other firms that also applied for H-1B visas, firms with higher lottery win rates are more likely to receive additional venture capital funding and to have a successful exit via an IPO or acquisition. H-1B visa lottery winners also subsequently receive more patents and patent citations. Overall, our results show that access to high-skill labor is a critical determinant of success for start-up firms.

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w26392