Sherry Xue

Working Papers

Returnee Inventor, Knowledge Spillover and International R&D Collaboration (Job market paper) 

Previous title: Knowledge Spillover and Innovation Decoupling: Evidence from Returnee Inventors 

Presented at SHKDI 2026, FMA 2025, GFC 2025, CAFC 2025, Ivey, WEFI Student-led Workshop 2023, Imperial College Job Market Candidate Evening, and LSE PhD workshop

[Link to the latest draft]

Abstract: This paper reconciles two recent trends in corporate innovation and skilled labor investment: growing cross-border recruitment of R&D workers and declining international R&D collaboration. Using patent data, I show that when Chinese firms hire patent inventors returning from abroad (“returnee”), they reduce cross-border R&D collaboration in technologies where the returnee has expertise in, while domestic patenting in those technologies rises. This reduction in R&D collaboration is accompanied by a drop in cross-border knowledge flow, measured by foreign patent citations, with no decline in domestic citations, and is concentrated in fields with strong prior international ties. Focusing on corporate groups with multiple establishments, I find that after a returnee joins, the establishments for external R&D experience a greater fall in international R&D collaboration than the internal R&D arms. This indicates that returnees substitute for international R&D collaboration, shift innovation toward domestic teams, and reduce outward knowledge flow at both the establishment and corporate group level.

Work in progress

CEO Contract Horizon and Innovation (R&R Journal of Financial Economics), with Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe and Moqi Groen-Xu

New Draft coming soon

The financial objective of Corporate Venture Capitalists: Evidence from the UK’s Corporate Venturing Scheme

Presented at WEFI Student-led Workshop 2022 and LSE PhD workshop

[Draft on request]

Abstract: I study whether expected financial returns affect corporate venture capitalists' investment decisions using a novel dataset of UK corporate venture capital investments identified through administrative data. Leveraging the termination of the UK Corporate Venturing Scheme, a corporate tax relief program, as well as eligibility requirements based on the size of the investor, the exogenous financial incentive attracts less experienced corporate investors who allocate lower total investments and engage in shorter investment periods. I further demonstrate that ventures invested in by financially motivated CVCs exhibit a lower rate of trade sale and IPO exit, a reduced probability of dissolution within five years, but they do not show a lower post-investment asset growth rate.

Teaching Experience

Ivey:

• HBA1 Finance, 2024-present