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Talents from Abroad. Foreign Managers and Productivity in the United Kingdom

Author

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  • Dimitrios Exadaktylos
  • Massimo Riccaboni
  • Armando Rungi
Abstract
In this paper, we test the contribution of foreign management on firms' competitiveness. We use a novel dataset on the careers of 165,084 managers employed by 13,106 companies in the United Kingdom in the period 2009-2017. We find that domestic manufacturing firms become, on average, between 7% and 12% more productive after hiring the first foreign managers, whereas foreign-owned firms register no significant improvement. In particular, we test that previous industry-specific experience is the primary driver of productivity gains in domestic firms (15.6%), in a way that allows the latter to catch up with foreign-owned firms. Managers from the European Union are highly valuable, as they represent about half of the recruits in our data. Our identification strategy combines matching techniques, difference-in-difference, and pre-recruitment trends to challenge reverse causality. Results are robust to placebo tests and to different estimators of Total Factor Productivity. Eventually, we argue that upcoming limits to the mobility of foreign talents after the Brexit event can hamper the allocation of productive managerial resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Dimitrios Exadaktylos & Massimo Riccaboni & Armando Rungi, 2020. "Talents from Abroad. Foreign Managers and Productivity in the United Kingdom," Papers 2007.04055, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2007.04055
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    Cited by:

    1. Vasily Astrov & Dimitrios Exadaktylos & Richard Grieveson & Beate Muck & Josef Pöschl & Massimo Riccaboni & Armando Rungi & Joris M. Schröder, 2020. "Monthly Report No. 03/2020," wiiw Monthly Reports 2020-03, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    2. Marcus Biermann, 2022. "The role of management practices in acquisitions and the FDI location decision," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 137-165, February.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • M11 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Production Management

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