TY  - JOUR
AU  - Møen,Jarle
TI  - Is Mobility of Technical Personnel a Source of R&D Spillovers?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7834
PY  - 2000
Y2  - August 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7834
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7834.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jarle Møen
Norwegian School of Economics & Business
Department of Finance & Management
Helleveien 30, N-5045
Bergen, NORWAY
Tel: 47-5595-9612
Fax: 47-5595-9650
E-Mail: jarle.moen@nhh.no
AB  - Labor mobility is often considered to be an important source of knowledge externalities, making it difficult for firms to appropriate returns to R&D investments.  In this paper, I argue that inter-firm transfers of knowledge embodied in people should be analyzed within a human capital framework. Testing such a framework using a matched employer-employee data set, I find that the technical staff in R&D-intensive firms pays for the knowledge they accumulate on the job through lower wages in the beginning of their career. Later they earn a return on these implicit investments through higher wages. This suggests that the potential externalities associated with labor mobility, at least to some extent, are internalized in the labor market.
ER  -