A new GLO Discussion Paper confirms the key role of business visits as a productivity enhancing channel of technology transfer.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 486, 2020

Business visits, technology transfer and productivity growth – Download PDF
by  Piva, Mariacristina & Tani, Massimiliano & Vivarelli, Marco

GLO Fellows Mariacristina Piva, Massimiliano Tani & Marco Vivarelli

Related paper: Piva, M., Tani, M. and Vivarelli, M. (2018). Business Visits, Knowledge Diffusion and Productivity. Journal of Population Economics, 31(4): 1321-1338.

Author Abstract: This paper builds on and considerably extends Piva, Tani and Vivarelli (2018), confirming the key role of Business Visits as a productivity enhancing channel of technology transfer. Our analysis is based on a unique database on business visits sourced from the U.S. National Business Travel Association, merged with OECD and World Bank data and resulting in an unbalanced panel covering 33 sectors and 14 countries over the period 1998-2013 (3,574 longitudinal observations). We find evidence that BVs contribute to fostering labour productivity in a significant way. While this is consistent with what found by the previous (scant) empirical literature on the subject, we also find that short-term mobility exhibits decreasing returns, being more crucial in those sectors characterized by less mobility and by lower productivity performances.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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