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Proximity and learning: evidence from a post-WW2 intellectual reparations program
[Gone but not forgotten: knowledge flows, labor mobility, and enduring social relationships]

Author

Listed:
  • Rasmus Bode
  • Guido Buenstorf
  • Dominik P Heinisch

Abstract

Prior work indicates that proximity facilitates learning, but proximity reflects individual choices. New data on a British post-World War 2 program to detain and interrogate German industrial experts allow us to minimize selection bias and to disentangle individual dimensions of proximity. Our empirical analysis of post-detention patenting activities suggests that cognitive proximity was more important for interactive learning than social and institutional proximity. Detention in the UK increased inventors’ subsequent likelihood of interacting with UK partners as well as their post-detention patent output.

Suggested Citation

  • Rasmus Bode & Guido Buenstorf & Dominik P Heinisch, 2020. "Proximity and learning: evidence from a post-WW2 intellectual reparations program [Gone but not forgotten: knowledge flows, labor mobility, and enduring social relationships]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 601-628.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:jecgeo:v:20:y:2020:i:3:p:601-628.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lbz023
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Proximity; mobility; natural experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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