Working Paper #2008-005
Is Inter-Firm Labor Mobility a Channel of Knowledge spillovers? Evidence from a Linked Employer-Employee Panel
An 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.
- Keywords
-
- Labor mobility
- R&D spillovers
- Profitability
- Linked employer-employee data. UNU-MERIT Working Papers ISSN 1871-9872
- JEL codes
-
- D62
- J24
- J62
- L25
- O31
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Maliranta, M., Mohnen, P., & Rouvinen, P. (2008). Is Inter-Firm Labor Mobility a Channel of Knowledge spillovers? Evidence from a Linked Employer-Employee Panel (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2008-005). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=3022