Does Mobility across Universities Raise Scientific Productivity?

Using a highly comprehensive new data set on Swedish researchers, we investigate the effects of inter-university mobility on researcher productivity. Our study suggests substantial gains from mobility on scientific output. The empirical analysis addresses selection using inverse probability treatment censoring weights. We find that mobility induces a long-lasting increase in a researcher's publications by 32% and citations by 63%. Such mobility effects are not explained by promotions taking place jointly with a move. Positive effects are found among individuals who move between universities and not for those who move to or from university colleges. Moreover, we find that the positive effect of moving only applies to researchers in medicine, natural sciences and engineering and technology, with no effect of mobility found in the social sciences and in the humanities.