Connected Cities, High-skill Migrants, and the Knowledge Economy: A Commentary

Abstract

Urbanization and global migration are the two biggest current trends affecting the global economy. This short commentary explores how the two trends are intertwined in the context of the twenty-first-century knowledge economy. First, global cities are disproportionately important as hubs of innovation. Second, high-skill migrants are heavily over-represented in the ranks of linchpin actors in international knowledge networks. The chapter argues that this research nexus is one of the most promising research opportunities for international business scholars today. Coda-Zabetta et al. (2022) and Murphree (2022) address two complementary aspects of these drivers of the global economy. The first is globally focused innovation which, as the authors demonstrate, is crucially dependent on migration. The second is locally focused entrepreneurship which is more of an urbanization issue.