WHAT ATTRACTS KNOWLEDGE WORKERS? THE ROLE OF SPACE AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

type="main"> <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>The aim of this paper is to identify the determinants of the geographical mobility of skilled individuals, such as inventors, across European regions. Among a large number of variables, we focus on the role of social proximity between inventors’ communities. We use a control function approach to address the endogenous nature of networks, and zero-inflated negative binomial models to accommodate our estimations to the count nature of the dependent variable and the high number of zeros it contains. Our results highlight the importance of physical proximity, job opportunities, social networks, as well as other relational variables in mediating this phenomenon.