Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/51909 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5654
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the mapping between labor mobility and industrial innovative activity for the population of R&D active Danish firms observed between 1999 and 2004. Our study documents a positive relationship between the number of workers who join a firm and the firm's innovative activity. This relationship is stronger if workers join from innovative firms. We also find evidence for positive feedback from workers who leave for an innovative firm, presumably because the worker who left stays in contact with their former colleagues. This implies that the positive feedback (social network effects) that has been found by other studies not only exists but even outweighs the disruption and loss of knowledge occurring to the previous employer from the worker leaving. Summing up the effects of joining and leaving workers, we find ample evidence for mobility to be associated with an increase in total innovative activity of the new and the old employer.
Subjects: 
labor mobility
innovation
social network
JEL: 
O33
O34
C23
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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