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Global Mobile Inventors

Author

Listed:
  • Bahar, Dany
  • Choudhury, Prithwiraj
  • Miguelez, Ernest
  • Signorelli, Sara

Abstract

The number of Global Mobile Inventors (GMIs), inventors moving across borders during their career, has increased more than tenfold over the past two decades, and the corridors of mobility have shifted towards a growing presence of emerging markets. We document that GMIs that have patented in a given technology before moving are 70% more likely to be among the pioneering inventors in that technology once they arrive at destination, which we interpret as evidence of knowledge diffusion across borders. Returnees, which are typically inventors from emerging markets that go back after having spent some time in the US and other advanced economies, are twice as likely to file pioneering patents once returned than migrants when arriving abroad. Finally, we find that the more central the GMIs in the network of inventors during the early stages of the technology life-cycle at destination, the faster the technology-specific knowledge is absorbed by local inventors.

Suggested Citation

  • Bahar, Dany & Choudhury, Prithwiraj & Miguelez, Ernest & Signorelli, Sara, 2024. "Global Mobile Inventors," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:171:y:2024:i:c:s0304387824001068
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103357
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Innovation; Migration; Patent; Technology; Knowledge;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

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