Knowledge Transfer from Multinationals through Labour Mobility: Learning from Export Experience

This paper investigates knowledge spillovers through labour mobility from multinational enterprises (MNEs) to domestic firms. Despite the recent increased interest in this particular channel of MNE spillovers, there is a need to understand how such effects of managerial labour mobility from MNEs function in more detail. Based on employer-employee level data from Estonia, we find that higher firm and individual-level performance associated with hiring MNE-experienced managers and top specialists especially tends to reflect the export experience of these employees. A channel for how these spillovers function appears to be the increase in the propensity to export by domestic firms. The contribution of external international experience is especially strong in the first stages of the internationalisation of a firm and for entry into nearby markets. There is no evidence of the effects of MNE experience on the intensity of exports.