The role of business visits in fostering R&D investment

Marco Vivarelli (), Mariacristina Piva () and Max Tani
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Mariacristina Piva: Dipartimento di Politica Economica, DISCE, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy

No dipe0049, DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Politica Economica from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE)

Abstract: Labor mobility is considered a powerful channel to acquire external knowledge and trigger complementarities in the innovation and R&D investment strategies; however, the extant literature has focused on either scientists’ mobility or migration of high-skilled workers, while virtually no attention has been devoted to the possible role of short-term business visits. Using a unique and novel database originating a country/sector unbalanced panel over the period 1998-2019 (for a total of 8,316 longitudinal observations), this paper aims to fill this gap by testing the impact of BVs on R&D investment. Results from GMM-SYS estimates show that short-term mobility positively and significantly affects R&D investments; moreover, our findings indicate - as expected - that the beneficial impact of BVs is particularly significant in less innovative countries and in less innovative industries. These outcomes justify some form of support for BVs within the portfolio of the effective innovation policies, both at the national and local level.

Keywords: Business visits; labor mobility; knowledge transfer; R&D investments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29
Date: 2025-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ino, nep-lab, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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http://dipartimenti.unicatt.it/politica-economica-DIPE0049.pdf First version, 2025 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Role of Business Visits in Fostering R&D Investment (2025)
Working Paper: The role of business visits in fostering R&D investment (2025)
Working Paper: The role of business visits in fostering R&D investment (2025)
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