Publication Date:
2016-05-18
Description:
I study whether return migrants facilitate knowledge production by local employees working for them at geographically distant research and development (R&D) locations. Using unique personnel and patenting data for 1315 employees at the Indian R&D center of a Fortune 500 technology firm, I exploit a natural experiment where the assignment of managers for newly hired college graduates is mandated by rigid HR rules and is uncorrelated to observable characteristics of the graduates. Given this assignment protocol, I find that local employees with returnee managers file disproportionately more US patents. I also find some evidence that return migrants act as a ‘bridge’ to transfer knowledge from the MNE headquarters to the local employees working for them.
Keywords:
F22 - International Migration, F23 - Multinational Firms
;
International Business, J24 - Human Capital
;
Skills
;
Occupational Choice
;
Labor Productivity, O34 - Intellectual Property Rights, R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity
Print ISSN:
1468-2702
Electronic ISSN:
1468-2710
Topics:
Geography
,
Economics
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