Suchergebnisse

This paper studies the impact of international business trips on the stock of knowledge available to an economy. It develops a theoretical model to analyse the possible effects, and presents an empirical application using productivity data for a panel of twelve Australian industries during 1991/2-2005/6. Business trips emerge as a significant source of productivity growth. As the knowledge transferred through business visits is non-rival, both countries of origin and destination can gain from the human capital of travellers. As a result, even countries traditionally disadvantaged by geography, size, or level of economic development have the opportunity to access the latest technology and information to stimulate growth. -- International labour movements ; face-to-face meetings ; business trips ; growth ; productivity

This paper investigates the effects of labour migration and openness to trade on regional skill endowments across the European Union at a time of increased economic integration. Using regional data from Eurostat's Regio database and the open web source Openflight for the period 1998-2010 we test whether the spatial concentration of skills has increased or decreased over time. We account for neighboring effects associated with both geographic proximity and links through civilian flights using a random spatial effect model. We find that migration contributes to convergence in regional skill endowments across member states, particularly at the Southern and Eastern periphery of the European Union. We also find that inter-regional connectivity through civilian flights has much stronger effects on the evolution of a region's skill endowment than geographic contiguity.

This paper studies the educational investment decisions of returning migrants while abroad in the context of their decisions about the choice of activity upon returning and the duration of migration. The theoretical model builds on Dustmann (1999), Dustmann and Kirchkamp (1992) and Mesnard (2004). Using data from the MIREM database we explore whether the type of skills acquired by migrants while abroad is related to the activity chosen upon return and the duration of migration. The results suggest that the type of education plays a significant role in the migration decisions of those returning as wage earners or self-employed. In particular, there is a clear positive relationship between being self-employed and having previously invested in vocational education in the host country. There is also a strong positive relationship between investing in university education abroad and becoming a wage earner. As international migration facilitates skill transfers between developed and developing countries, the economic development of the latter will increasingly depend on migrants' ability to access educational and vocational training in the developed world aside from university education. Returning migrants with vocational and professional training tend to be self-employed after returning home, and by so doing they contribute to reducing poverty in the host country.