Research

Work in Progress


Mass layoffs are typically viewed as harmful to regional economies. However, they may also connect otherwise disconnected innovation hubs by reallocating skilled workers and facilitating the flow of ideas across firms. This paper examines the causal effect of displaced inventors on the innovative productivity of their new coworkers. I construct a novel dataset linking LinkedIn job histories to USPTO patent records, enabling inventor-level tracking of mobility and innovation outcomes over time. The results show that incumbent inventors experience sizable increases in patent output and citations after being exposed to displaced inventors. These gains emerge quickly, persist over several years, and are concentrated among incumbents with lower pre-exposure productivity. In contrast, high-productivity incumbents experience little benefit or modest declines. The paper discusses potential mechanisms, including access to new technological knowledge and expanded external collaborative networks.