Knowledge Migration: A Cross-National Analysis

This study contributes to existing literature on the innovative activity of firms, examining how migration can be a channel for knowledge spillover. Indeed, the aim of the paper is to introduce a new variable, which is computed on the basis of the distribution of inventors across countries, according to patent data. The paper consists of a theoretical model and an empirical analysis, which is a cross-national analysis of the United States, Japan and Europe, based upon a new dataset of worldwide R&D-intensive manufacturing firms. We use data from all EU R&D investment scoreboard editions, which were issued every year from 2002 to 2010 by the JRC-IPTS. The empirical results suggest that the migration of inventors might enhance local innovation levels, by confirming the theoretical analysis propositions.