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.