The nexus between inventors’ mobility and regional growth across European regions

The role of the spatial mobility of skilled individuals and knowledge workers on the innovative capacity of the recipient region has largely been highlighted, measured and proved in the literature, by positing a direct link from mobility to innovation. This paper enters this literature by explicitly examining and verifying whether innovation generated by inventors’ mobility is enough to enhance growth and whether such link depends on the innovative context. In fact, areas in which inventors can more easily enter, integrate and complement existing consolidated knowledge bases can be more easily affected by incoming inventors.