- Immigration
- US Labor Market
- Economics
- Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
When talented inventors emigrate, does the origin or destination country benefit? Economist Marta Prato explains that inventors who come to the United States become more productive — and remarkably, so do their former co-inventors back home, through ongoing knowledge sharing. These immigrant inventors, who now account for one in five US patents, create a two-way flow of ideas that strengthens the American economy while benefiting their countries of origin.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Marta Prato is an assistant professor of economics at Bocconi University. She is a research affiliate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), an affiliate at Bocconi's Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER), and a research fellow at RF Berlin. During the 2025-2026 academic year, she will be on sabbatical leave as a Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) visiting fellow. Prato also serves as a member of the editorial board of the Review of Economic Studies. Her research examines long-run macroeconomic trends in growth and inequality. Her work on economic growth investigates how the allocation of innovative human capital impacts innovation and productivity, both within and across countries, and how policy can enhance economic performance by improving talent allocation. Her research on long-run inequality connects to residential segregation and intergenerational mobility, studying policies that can tackle inequality and segregation while improving welfare. Prior to joining Bocconi, she was a Cowles Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University. She obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2022. She holds a BS and an MSc in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University.
In 2022, she participated in the Review of Economic Studies Tour. In 2021, she was a recipient of the EEA and Unicredit Job Market Best Paper Award.
