Business visits, technology transfer and productivity growth

Arbeitspapier

This paper builds on and considerably extends Piva, Tani and Vivarelli (2018), confirming the key role of Business Visits as a productivity enhancing channel of technology transfer. Our analysis is based on a unique database on business visits sourced from the U.S. National Business Travel Association, merged with OECD and World Bank data and resulting in an unbalanced panel covering 33 sectors and 14 countries over the period 1998-2013 (3,574 longitudinal observations). We find evidence that BVs contribute to fostering labour productivity in a significant way. While this is consistent with what found by the previous (scant) empirical literature on the subject, we also find that short-term mobility exhibits decreasing returns, being more crucial in those sectors characterized by less mobility and by lower productivity performances.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: GLO Discussion Paper ; No. 486

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
• Subject: Business visits ; Labour mobility ; Knowledge diffusion ; R&D ; Productivity

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Piva, Mariacristina ; Tani, Massimiliano ; Vivarelli, Marco
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Global Labor Organization (GLO)
• (where): Essen
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/214686
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET