Return Migration and Geography of Innovation in MNEs: A Natural Experiment of On-the-job Learning of Knowledge Production by Local Workers Reporting to Return Migrants

 
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Choudhury, Prithwiraj. "Return Migration and Geography of Innovation in MNEs: A Natural Experiment of On-the-job Learning of Knowledge Production by Local Workers Reporting to Return Migrants." Journal of Economic Geography 16, no. 3 (May 2016): 585–610.
Abstract
I study whether return migrants facilitate knowledge production by local employees working for them at geographically distant R&D locations. Using unique personnel and patenting data for 1,315 employees at the Indian R&D center of a Fortune 500 technology firm, I exploit a natural experiment where the assignment of managers for newly hired college graduates is mandated by rigid HR rules and is uncorrelated to observable characteristics of the graduates. Given this assignment protocol, I find that local employees with returnee managers file disproportionately more US patents. I also find some evidence that return migrants act as a 'bridge' to transfer knowledge from the MNE headquarters to the local employees working for them.
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This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#OAP
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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:27022532

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Note to self: He did not include his name on the file he provided. I don't usually go back to the authors about this, but should I be going back to them? Should some of these papers have a title page? He sent a publisher's final with his name but we cannot deposit that one. I have asked again. I have deposited the correct paper with author name on it now.