Software engineering is prototypical of knowledge work in the digital economy and exhibits strong geographic concentration, with Silicon Valley as the epitome of a tech cluster. We investigate productivity effects of knowledge worker agglomeration. To overcome existing measurement challenges, we...

Firms that want to innovate successfully need to hire and motivate highly talented workers. This paper makes a key connection between the potential returns to innovation in terms of new products and the structure of compensation to skilled employees. We use linked employer-employee data to show...

Over the past 20 years, Italy has realised changes in labour legislation, leading to a decentralisation of wage bargaining and increased flexibility in labour relations. Both these factors have helped to curb wage growth and to enhance employment growth, but have also led to a crisis in Italian...

This paper explores knowledge services clusters (KSCs) as a distinct and increasingly important form of geographic cluster, in particular in emerging economies: KSCs are defined as geographic concentrations of lower-cost skills serving global demand for increasingly commoditized knowledge...

There is a large body of literature on the relationship between innovations and employment at the firm level, with most of the results indicating positive effects. Thus far, this kind of analysis has not been performed for Poland and it seems to be an important and interesting field for...

Matched employee-employer data from the UK are used to analyze the wage premium to working in an innovative firm. We find that firms that are more R&D intensive pay higher wages on average, and this is particularly true for workers in some low-skilled occupations. We propose a model in which a...

We study the impact of techies—engineers and other technically trained workers—on firm-level productivity. We first report new facts on the role of techies in the firm by leveraging French administrative data and unique surveys. Techies are STEM-skill intensive and are associated with...

We study the impact of techies-engineers and other technically trained workers-on firm-level productivity. We first report new facts on the role of techies in the firm by leveraging French administrative data and unique surveys. Techies are STEM-skill intensive and are associated with...

The advancement of the knowledge frontier is crucial for technological innovation and human progress. Using novel data from the setting of mathematics, this paper establishes two results. First, we document that individuals who demonstrate exceptional talent in their teenage years have an...