---
title: "Is Inter-firm Labor Mobility a Channel of Knowledge Spillovers? Evidence from a Linked Employer-Employee Panel"
authors:
  - name: "Maliranta, Mika"
  - name: "Mohnen, Pierre"
  - name: "Rouvinen, Petri"
    url: "https://www.etla.fi/henkilot/rouvinen-petri/"
    sameAs:
      - "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7666-6971"
      - "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qYHEFroAAAAJ"
      - "https://twitter.com/Petri_Rouvinen"
date_published: "2008-01-11"
series: "Discussion Papers no."
series_number: "1116"
jel_codes:
  - "D62"
  - "J24"
  - "J62"
  - "L25"
  - "O31"
language: "en"
publisher: "ETLA Economic Research"
pdf_url: "https://www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/dp1116.pdf"
keywords:
  - "labor mobility"
  - "R&D spillovers"
  - "profitability"
  - "linked employer-employee data"
identifier: "https://www.etla.fi/julkaisut/id/Discussion-Papers-no.-1116"
---

# Is Inter-firm Labor Mobility a Channel of Knowledge Spillovers? Evidence from a Linked Employer-Employee Panel

**Published:** 2008-01-11  
**Categories:** Publikationer  
**Tags:** Diskussionsämnen  
**URL:** https://www.etla.fi/sv/publikationer/dp1116-en/

An employer-employee panel is used to study whether the movement of workers across firms is a channel of unintended diffusion of R&D-generated knowledge. Somewhat surprisingly, hiring workers from others’ R&D labs to one’s own does not seem to be a significant spillover channel. Hiring workers previously in R&D to one’s non-R&D activities, however, boosts both productivity and profitability. This is interpreted as evidence that these workers transmit knowledge that can be readily copied and implemented without much additional R&D effort.

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