Skilled labour mobility, networks and knowledge creation in regions: a panel data approach

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relative contribution of different features of the local labour market for inventors on regional patenting. By means of a knowledge production function and a sample of 276 European regions, we assess whether local labour mobility of inventors, as well as the scale and extent of their collaborative research networks, correlates with innovation outcomes. In the second part of the paper, we extend the analysis to the role of spatial mobility of knowledge workers and cross-regional research networks as predictors of regional patenting. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2013