Does Mobility Increase the Productivity of Inventors? New Evidence from a Quasi-Experimental Design

Abstract

Although labor mobility has been recognized as a key mechanism to transfer tacit knowledge, prior research on inventors has so far neglected to address the question of the consequence of a move on inventive performance. This paper improves on the current R&D literature by presenting a quasi-experimental approach to explore the effect of a specific move of an inventor on his performance. The quasi-experiment provides a favorable setting to test this relationship since it allows interpreting changes of inventive performance causal to a particular move. Results reveal that in the post-move period inventors produce more patentable innovations that are characterized by a higher grant rate and by higher value. However, the gains from movement seem to dissipate over time. Data for the analysis was derived from a survey of German inventors (N = 3,049).

Keywords: Inventor, Productivity, Mobility, Quasi Experiment, Patent