The role of labour migration inflows on R&D and innovation activity: Evidence from Russian regions

What is the effect of an increase of migration inflows on the R&D and innovative performance of developing countries? The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of migration inflows on the R&D and innovation activity (measured as expenditures on R&D and technological innovations) in Russian regions. To this end, we use data on 85 Russian regions for the period 2010-2016 through a multi-region economic geography model. In particular, we test the hypothesis about the importance of migration inflows on R&D and technological innovation activity (H1) and the hypothesis about the importance of immigrants’ (incoming migrants) human capital (measured by the education level of incoming migrants) on R&D and innovation activity (H2). Empirical findings support the evidence in favor of a positive causal link between innovation and migration inflows. Results of our investigation are important because they suggest useful insights for formulating science and innovation policies in Russia, which is a developing country where the recent policies favoring the technological innovation since the transition period have not yet achieved a satisfying outcome. This paper increases the knowledge in the field with respect to the existing literature, shedding further light on the migration inflows effects, which is a political topic to manage very relevant in all countries