Measuring the International Mobility of Inventors: A New Database

Ernest Miguelez and Carsten Fink

No 8, WIPO Economic Research Working Papers from World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division

Abstract: This paper has two objectives. First, it describes a new database mapping migratory patterns of inventors, extracted from information included in patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. We explain in detail the information contained in the database and discuss the usefulness and reliability of the underlying data. Second, the paper provides a descriptive overview of inventor migration patterns, based on the information contained in the newly constructed database. Among the largest receiving countries, we find that the United States exhibits by far the highest inventor immigration rate, followed by Australia and Canada. European countries lag behind in attracting inventive talent; in addition, France, Germany, and the UK see more inventors emigrating than immigrating. In relation to the number of home country inventors, Central American, Caribbean and African economies show the largest inventor brain drain.

Keywords: brain drain; skilled international migration; inventors; PCT patents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 O15 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2013-05, Revised 2013-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_8.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring the international mobility of inventors: A new database (2017)
Software Item: Inventor migration files (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wip:wpaper:08

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