Is inter-firm labor mobility a channel of knowledge spillovers? Evidence from a linked employer-employee panel

Mika Maliranta, Pierre Mohnen, Petri Rouvinen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

80 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberdtp031
Pages (from-to)1161-1191
Number of pages31
JournalIndustrial and Corporate Change
Volume18
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Jun 2009
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

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