Knowledge spillovers and labor mobility in industrial clusters are interrelated phenomena. A firm's knowledge is embodied in the entrepreneur and in the specialized workers. Knowledge can spill over from one firm to another through two channels: direct revelation from one entrepreneur to another and labor mobility. We show that, in equilibrium, an entrepreneur can disclose information to another in order to avoid labor poaching. The incentive of firms to disclose information voluntarily is one of the novel contributions of our paper. In the absence of information disclosure, spillovers can still occur through labor poaching. Labor poaching and voluntary disclosure of information can also occur simultaneously in equilibrium. We also provide a rationale for the localized character of the spillovers and for the limited geographical extensions of industrial clusters.
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Paper provided by Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Dipartimento di Statistica in its series Working Papers with number
20060507.