Impact of importing foreign talent on performance levels of local co-workers

Alvarez, J; Forrest, DK; Sanz, I; Tena, JD

Abstract

When skilled labour is imported to work in a creative industry, local workers may benefit, in terms of their
own level of skill, through contact with new techniques and practices. European basketball offers an
opportunity to investigate the reality of this general claim. For a panel of 47 European countries observed over
more than twenty years, we model probability of qualification for, and subsequent performance in, Olympic
Tournaments and World and European Championships. We demonstrate that, consistent with the spillover
hypothesis, an increase in the number of foreigners in a domestic league tends to generate a subsequent
improvement in the performance of the national team (which has to be comprised only of local players).

Citation

Alvarez, J., Forrest, D., Sanz, I., & Tena, J. (2011). Impact of importing foreign talent on performance levels of local co-workers. Labour Economics, 18(3), 287-296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2010.11.003

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Dec 12, 2011
• Journal: Labour Economics
• Print ISSN: 0927-5371
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 287-296
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2010.11.003
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2010.11.003