The international mobility of researchers has been central to the agenda of policy-makers for several decades. Despite the growing presence of mobility grants within public funding agencies' portfolios, empirical evidence on their effects remains scant. In this paper, we contribute to the literature by studying the Marie Curie fellowships, the flagship program of the EU, providing competitive grants to early-stage researchers to spend a research period abroad. Based on data for the universe of applicants to the Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013), we exploit the discontinuity in grant assignment to uncover causal effects on individual researchers. Results show that grants are indeed conducive to higher chances of experiencing mobility towards the scientists' country of choice. Conversely, we do not find systematic evidence that grants on average lead to increases in publication quantity or quality, nor improved career progression. Finally, we document interesting heterogeneous effects: grants supporting extra-European mobility, as opposed to those supporting mobility within Europe, generally yield more positive effects across most outcomes. This suggests that grants are most effective when targeting mobility flows subject to larger frictions. (co-authors: Stefano Baruffaldi, Yevgeniya Shevtsova)
Contact person: David Heller
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