Cognitive Mobility - Labor Market Responses to Supply Shocks in the Space of Ideas

Kirk Doran and George Borjas

No 19, Working Papers from University of Notre Dame, Department of Economics

Abstract: Knowledge producers who are conducting research on a particular set of questions may respond to supply and demand shocks by shifting their resources to a different set of questions. Cognitive mobility measures the transition from one locations in an idea space to another location in that space. This paper examines the cognitive mobility flows unleashed by the influx of a large number of Soviet mathematicians into the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Our analysis exploits the fact that the influx of Soviet mathematicians into the American mathematics community was larger in some fields than in others. The data reveal substantial cognitive mobility in response to the influx, with American mathematicians moving away from, rather than moving to, fields that likely received large numbers of Soviet emigres. It appears that diminishing returns in specific research areas, rather than beneficial human capital spillovers, dominated the cognitive mobility decisions of pre-existing knowledge producers.

Keywords: Cognitive mobility; labor mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J2 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2012-11, Revised 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-neu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Cognitive Mobility: Labor Market Responses to Supply Shocks in the Space of Ideas (2015)
Chapter: Cognitive Mobility: Labor Market Responses to Supply Shocks in the Space of Ideas (2012)
Working Paper: Cognitive Mobility: Labor Market Responses to Supply Shocks in the Space of Ideas (2012)
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