Immigration and firm innovation in Western-Europe : understanding the channels of influence

Abstract

In most European countries, immigrants became more diversified by country of origin, gender and education levels. Especially the mobility of highly-skilled workers from various countries creates both challenges and opportunities from an economic perspective.This study focuses on the relationship between firm's innovation performance and intra-firm diversity. It introduces a structured analysis of the mechanisms of influence at different spatial scales, namely from country to firm level, based on the evidence provided by the economics research in Europe.