Human Capital, Firm Capabilities, and Innovation

Ajay Bhaskarbhatla (), Luis Cabral, Deepak Hegde () and Thomas Peeters
Additional contact information
Ajay Bhaskarbhatla: Erasmus School of Economics, ERIM
Deepak Hegde: New York University

No 17-115/VII, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: In this study, we decompose the contributions of employeesÕ human capital and firmsÕ capabilities for innovation using a 37-year panel of U.S. patenting activity. We estimate that inventorsÕ human capital is 5-10 times more important than firm capabilities for explaining the variance in inventor output. We then examine matching between inventors and firms and find highly productive inventors are attracted to firms that (i) have weak firm-specific invention capabilities, and (ii) employ other talented inventors. A theoretical model that incorporates worker preferences for inventive output rationalizes our empirical findings of negative assortative matching between inventors and firms, and positive assortative matching among inventors.

Keywords: Human Capital; Capabilities; Innovation; Matching; Competitive Advantage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O30 O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-12-08, Revised 2020-03-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eff, nep-ent, nep-hrm, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-lma, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/17115.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20170115

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().