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Teaching locals new tricks: Foreign experts as a channel of knowledge transfers

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  • Markusen, James R.
  • Trofimenko, Natalia

Abstract

Gains from productivity and knowledge transmission arising from the presence of foreign firms have received a good deal of empirical attention, but theoretical micro-foundations for this mechanism are limited. Here we develop a model in which foreign experts may train domestic workers who work with them. Hypotheses are generated under the assumptions that workers learn from experts (the effect of using an expert is not strictly temporary) and that this learning is embodied in the workers rather than in the firm. We use fixed effects and nearest neighbor matching estimators on a panel of plant-level data for Colombia that identifies the use of foreign experts, to show that these experts have substantial and persistent positive effects (though not always immediate) on the wages of domestic workers and on the value added per worker.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Development Economics.

Volume (Year): 88 (2009)
Issue (Month): 1 (January)
Pages: 120-131

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Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:88:y:2009:i:1:p:120-131

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec

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Keywords: F4 O19 O47 Productivity Transmission mechanism Learning Spillovers Foreign experts;

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References

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  1. Ethier, W.J. & Markusen, J.R., 1993. "Multinational Firms, Technology Diffusion and Trade," ISER Discussion Paper 0303, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Patrik Tingvall & Andreas Poldahl, 2012. "Determinants of Firm R&D: The Role of Relationship-Specific Interactions for R&D Spillovers," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 395-411, December.
  2. Adam Blake & Ziliang Deng & Rod Falvey, 2009. "How does the productivity of foreign direct investment spill over to local firms in Chinese manufacturing?," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 183-197.
  3. Roberto Alvarez & Ricardo Lopez, 2006. "Is Exporting a Source of Productivity Spillovers?," Caepr Working Papers 2006-012, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Economics Department, Indiana University Bloomington.
  4. Zakharenko, Roman, 2007. "Migration, Learning, and Development," MPRA Paper 6262, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Stoyanov, A. & Zubanov, N.V., 2012. "Productivity Gains from Worker Mobility and their Distribution between Workers and Firms," Research Paper ERS-2012-009-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni.
  6. Nikolaj Malchow-Møller & James R. Markusen & Bertel Schjerning, 2009. "Foreign Firms, Domestic Wages," CAM Working Papers 2009-02, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.
  7. Malchow-Møller, Nikolaj & Munch, Jakob R. & Skaksen, Jan Rose, 2011. "Do Foreign Experts Increase the Productivity of Domestic Firms?," IZA Discussion Papers 6001, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  8. Thomas Sampson, 2012. "Brain Drain or Brain Gain? Technology Diffusion and Learning On-the-job," CEP Discussion Papers dp1168, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  9. Bianka Dettmer, 2012. "Business services outsourcing and economic growth: Evidence from a dynamic panel data approach," Jena Economic Research Papers 2012-049, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Planck-Institute of Economics.

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