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Environmental Innovation and International Migration of Inventors

Author

Listed:
  • Ivan Etzo

    (Department of Economics and Business and CRENoS University of Cagliari)

  • Sumiko Takaoka

    (Seikei University)

Abstract

We study the effects of migrant inventors on environmental innovation activity for sustainable development. We focus on inventor migration from (to) countries specializing in patent applications grouped into eight environment-related technology domains. Using the novel dataset created by Pellegrino et al. (2023) and a weighting scheme to construct the migrant inventor variables, we create accurate measures of the stock of immigrant and emigrant inventors. We find a positive and significant impact of migrant inventors on the green innovation activity of both receiving and sending countries. The results indicate that environmental innovation rises with R&D expenditure, international trade, air pollution (CO2 emissions), and natural disasters. Our results are robust to the instrumental variable approach, a falsification test for the main explanatory variables, a dynamic model specification (path dependency hypothesis), a different set of lagged control variables, and inventors’ data tracked over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Ivan Etzo & Sumiko Takaoka, 2025. "Environmental Innovation and International Migration of Inventors," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 16(3), pages 12193-12225, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:16:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s13132-024-02406-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s13132-024-02406-w
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation

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