金融与财务学系列讲座之337期

Time：11:00-12:00, Friday, May 22, 2026

Location: Room 603, Starr Building（史带楼603室）

Host： Dr. Xintong Zhan （战昕彤 博士）

Department of Finance, FDSM

Topic: Returnee Inventor, Knowledge Spillover and International R&D Collaboration

Speaker: Dr. Sherry Xue (薛云 博士)

University of Western Ontario

Abstract: This paper reconciles two recent trends in corporate innovation and skilled labor investment: growing cross-border recruitment of R&D workers and declining international R&D collaboration. Using patent data, I show that when Chinese firms hire patent inventors returning from abroad (“returnee”), they reduce cross-border R&D collaboration in technologies where the returnee has expertise in, while domestic patenting in those technologies rises. This reduction in R&D collaboration is accompanied by a drop in cross-border knowledge flow, measured by foreign patent citations, with no decline in domestic citations, and is concentrated in fields with strong prior international ties. Focusing on corporate groups with multiple establishments, I find that after a returnee joins, the establishments for external R&D experience a greater fall in international R&D collaboration than the internal R&D arms. This indicates that returnees substitute for international R&D collaboration, shift innovation toward domestic teams, and reduce outward knowledge flow at both the establishment and corporate group level.

Bio: Sherry Xue is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario. Her research interests lie at the intersection of empirical corporate finance and innovation, with a particular focus on the migration of innovative, high-skilled workers and venture capital. In her recent work, she explores the role of inventors who return to their home countries in shaping the innovation direction of their employers, cross-border R&D collaboration, and the transfer of knowledge. She also studies how changes in corporate managerial incentives transmit to innovation quality. In other ongoing research, she investigates how geopolitical risks and shocks impact investor attention and performance within the venture capital market.Prior to joining Ivey in 2024, Sherry earned her Ph.D. and M.Res. in Finance with Distinction from the London School of Economics. She also holds an M.Phil. in Finance and a B.Sc. in Quantitative Finance from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.