  Did migrants make Paris a Mecca for the arts and Vienna a beacon of classical
music? Or was their rise a pure consequence of local actors? Here, we use data
on more than 22,000 historical individuals born between the years 1000 and 2000
to estimate the contribution of famous immigrants, emigrants, and locals to the
knowledge specializations of European regions. We find that the probability
that a region develops or keeps specialization in an activity (based on the
birth of famous physicists, painters, etc.) grows with both, the presence of
immigrants with knowledge on that activity and immigrants with knowledge in
related activities. In contrast, we do not find robust evidence that the
presence of locals with related knowledge explains entries and/or exits. We
address some endogeneity concerns using fixed-effects models considering any
location-period-activity specific factors (e.g. the presence of a new
university attracting scientists).
