The Workforce of Pioneer Plants

Ricardo Hausmann and Frank Neffke

Working Paper Series from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government

Abstract: Is labor mobility important in technological diffusion? We address this question by asking how plants assemble their workforce if they are industry pioneers in a location. By definition, these plants cannot hire local workers with industry experience. Using German social-security data, we find that such plants recruit workers from related industries from more distant regions and local workers from less-related industries. We also show that pioneers leverage a low-cost advantage in unskilled labor to compete with plants that are located in areas where the industry is more prevalent. Finally, whereas research on German reunification has often focused on the effects of east-west migration, we show that the opposite migration facilitated the industrial diversification of eastern Germany by giving access to experienced workers from western Germany.

JEL-codes: J23 J24 M13 M50 O15 O33 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ltv, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=1305

Related works:
Journal Article: The workforce of pioneer plants (2019)
Working Paper: The Workforce of Pioneer Plants (2016)
Working Paper: The workforce of pioneer plants (2016)
Working Paper: The Workforce of Pioneer Plants (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecl:harjfk:16-006

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