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Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics

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Moving People with Ideas: Innovation, Inter-regional Mobility and Firm Heterogeneity

Apr 17, 2015, 10:30am - 12:00pm

Riccardo Crescenzi, Associate Professor of Economic Geography in the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Visiting Scholar at the Taubman Centre for State and Local Government at Harvard University, will present on April 17th in Room 105 of the Agricultural Administration Building (2120 Fyffe Road) as part of the AEDE Applied Economics Seminar Series. His presentation will focus on his recent research with Luisa Gagliardi, also from the London School of Economics: "Moving People with Ideas: Innovation, Inter-regional Mobility and Firm Heterogeneity." 

Abstract: This paper looks at the link between inter-regional mobility, innovation and firms’ behavioural heterogeneity in their reliance on localised external sources of knowledge. By linking patent data (capturing inventors’ inter-regional mobility) with firm-level data (providing information on firms’ innovation inputs and behaviour) a robust identification strategy makes it possible to shed new light on the geographical mobility-innovation nexus. The analysis of English firms suggests that firm-level heterogeneity – largely overlooked in previous studies - is the key to explain the innovation impact of inter-regional mobility over and above learning-by-hiring mechanisms. A causal link between inflows of new inventors into the local labour market and innovation emerges only for firms that make the use of external knowledge sources an integral part of their innovation strategies.

The event is open to the Ohio State community and RSVPs are not required.