Absorption of Foreign Knowledge: Firms’ Benefits of Employing Immigrants

Jürgen Bitzer, Erkan Gören and Sanne Hiller ()
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Sanne Hiller: Ruhr University Bochum

No V-386-15, Working Papers from University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper explores the question of how immigrant employees affect a firm’s capacity to absorb foreign knowledge. Using matched employer-employee data from Denmark for the years 1996 to 2009, we are able to show that non-Danish employees from technologically advanced countries contribute significantly to a firm’s total factor productivity (TFP) through their ability to access foreign knowledge. The empirical results suggest that the impact increases if the immigrants come from technologically advanced countries, are highly educated, and work in high-skilled positions.

Keywords: R&D Spillovers; Absorptive Capacity; Firm-Level Analysis; Foreign Workers; Immigrants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D20 J82 L20 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2015-10, Revised 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-ino, nep-int, nep-knm, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Oldenburg Working Papers V-386-15

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:old:dpaper:386

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