The Productivity Impact of Business Mobility: International Evidence

Arbeitspapier

The aim of this paper is to investigate the productivity impact of business visits, relative to traditional drivers of productivity enhancement, namely capital formation and R&D. To carry out the analysis, we combine unique and novel data on business visits sourced from the U.S. National Business Travel Association with OECD data on R&D and capital formation. The resulting unbalanced panel covers on average 16 sectors per year in 10 countries during the period 1998-2011 (2,262 observations). Our results suggest that mobility through business visits is an effective mechanism to improve productivity. The estimated effect is about half as large as investing in R&D, supporting viewing business visits as a form of long-term investment rather than pure consumption expenditure. In a nutshell, our outcomes support the need to recognize the private and social value of business mobility.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: GLO Discussion Paper ; No. 14

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
• Subject: Business visits ; labour mobility ; knowledge ; 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): Maastricht
• (when): 2017

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/155276
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET