UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series
Is Inter-Firm Labor Mobility a Channel of Knowledge spillovers? Evidence from a Linked Employer-Employee Panel
Mika Maliranta, Pierre Mohnen & Petri Rouvinen #2008-005An employer-employee panel is used to study whether the movement of
workers across firms is a channel of unintended diffusion of
R&D-generated knowledge. Somewhat surprisingly, hiring workers from
others' R&D labs to one's own does not seem to be a significant
spillover channel. Hiring workers previously in R&D to one's non-R&D
activities, however, boosts both productivity and profitability. This is
interpreted as evidence that these workers transmit knowledge that can
be readily copied and implemented without much additional R&D effort.
JEL codes: D62, J24, J62, L25, O31.
Keywords: Labor mobility, R&D spillovers, Profitability, Linked
employer-employee data.
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872
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