The Impact of Migration Movements on Innovation Activities in Croatian Counties

Abstract

Innovation activities are one of the most important engines behind economic growth. Among factors that facilitate development of innovations a particularly prominent place belongs to social and cultural diversity of particular geographic areas. Contributions within a number of academic disciplines point to the positive impact of the heterogeneity of the population on the generation of new ideas, knowledge diffusion, entrepreneurship and economic growth. However, the relationship between migration movements and innovations at the regional level has been investigated to a lesser extent. This is especially true when it comes to spatial effects of migration movements on innovations that have not been addressed in the existing literature. The objective of this research is to explore spatial impact of migration movements on innovation activities of Croatian counties in the 2005-2013 period. Results obtained using the spatial panel Durbin econometric technique point to a negative intraregional and positive interregional impact of intercounty and international migration movements on regional innovation activity. Increased innovation activity within individual regions has a positive impact on the same activity of neighbouring regions.

Innovation development and migration: panel data approach

“…The increasing abovementioned indicators by 1% led to positive growth Mig by 10,4%, 15,9% and 24,1% respectively in homogeneous model and by 7,78%, 16,8% and 22,3% in heterogeneous model. These results are with the previous findings (Jensen, 2014;Stojčić et al, 2016;Ariu et al, 2016;Lissoni, 2018;Fassio et al, 2019). Considering the findings, the core determinants for positive changes of migration among analysed countries should be increasing the level of government efficiency and innovation development due to: improving the Quality of research investigation (experience of scientists, their number, provision and partnership with other countries); increasing the financial supporting for innovation development (readiness of the government and the public sector to support research activities, and the private sector to invest in the developing and implementation of new technologies); increasing the investor interest in innovation development (creating an attractive investment climate for technology development); active implementation of innovation in small and mediumsized enterprises; increasing the interaction of companies, hubs, centres at the international and local levels.…”

The Role of Ethnic Diversity in Stimulating Innovation Processes: Comparative Analysis of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary

“…Bratti and Conti (2018) point out that the proportion of immigrants in Italy does not translate into either technical innovations (patents) or any other innovations. Contrary to this, Stojčić et al (2016) argue that international movement of people positively affects innovation in Croatian counties.…”