Productivity spillovers through labor flows : the effect of productivity gap, foreign-owned firms, and skill-relatedness

authors: Zsolt Csáfordi (junior research fellow, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences), László Lőrincz (research fellow, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Corvinus University of Budapest, Faculty of Economics, Centre for Labour Economics), Balázs Lengyel (research fellow, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and International Business School, Budapest), Károly Miklós Kiss (senior research fellow, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and University of Pannonia, Faculty of Business and Economics)

What puts productivity spillovers into effect through worker mobility across firms? Productivity difference between the sending and receiving firms have been found to drive these spillovers; while an alternative explanation suggests that labor flows from foreign-owned companies provide productivity gains for the firm. We argue here that skill-relatedness across firms also matters because industry-specific skills are important for organizational learning and production. Hungarian employee-employer linked panel data from 2003-2011 imply that productivity gap rules out the effect of foreign spillovers. Furthermore, we find that flows from skill-related industries outperform the effect of flows from unrelated industries.

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Alternative title:	A munkaerő-áramlás átterjedési hatásai
Year of publication:	May 2016
Authors:	Csáfordi, Zsolt ; Lőrincz, László ; Lengyel, Balázs ; Kiss, Károly Miklós
Publisher:	Budapest : Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Subject:	skill-relatedness network \| firm productivity \| knowledge spillover \| labor mobility \| productivity gap \| foreign ownership \| Produktivität \| Productivity \| Spillover-Effekt \| Spillover effect \| Wissenstransfer \| Knowledge transfer \| Auslandsinvestition \| Foreign investment \| Multinationales Unternehmen \| Transnational corporation \| Arbeitsproduktivität \| Labour productivity \| Industrieforschung \| Industrial research \| Arbeitsmobilität \| Labour mobility \| Technologietransfer \| Technology transfer \| Ausländische Tochtergesellschaft \| Foreign subsidiary