A multiresolution-based adaptation concept is proposed that aims at accelerating discontinuous Galerkin schemes applied to non-linear hyperbolic conservation laws. Opposite to standard adaptation concepts no error estimates are needed to tag mesh elements for refinement. Instead of this, a multiresolution analysis is performed on a hierarchy of nested grids for the data given on a uniformly refined mesh. This provides difference information between successive refinement levels that may become negligibly small in regions where the solution is locally smooth. Applying hard thresholding the data are highly compressed and local grid adaptation is triggered by the remaining significant coefficients. A central mathematical problem addressed in this work is then to show at least for scalar one-dimensional problems that choosing an appropriate threshold value, the adaptive solution is of the same accuracy as the reference solution on a uniformly refined mesh. Numerical comparisons demonstrate the efficiency of the concept.

While it is well known that managers prefer in-person meetings for negotiating deals and selling their products, face-to-face communication may be particularly important for the transfer of technology because technology is best explained and demonstrated in person. This paper studies the role of short-term cross-border labor movements for innovation by estimating the recent impact of U.S. business travel to foreign countries on their patenting rates. Business travel is shown to have a signi…cant e¤ect up and beyond technology transfer through the channels of international trade and foreign direct investment. On average, a 10% increase in business travel leads to an increase in patenting by about 0.2%, and inward business travel is about one fourth as potent for innovation as domestic R&D spending. We show that the technological knowledge of each business traveler matters by estimating a higher impact for travelers that originate in U.S. states with substantial innovation, such as California. This study provides initial evidence that international air travel may be an important channel through which cross-country income di¤erences can be reduced.

While it is well known that managers prefer in-person meetings for negotiating deals and selling their products, face-to-face communication may be particularly important for the transfer of technology because technology is best explained and demonstrated in person. This paper studies the role of short-term cross-border labor movements for innovation by estimating the recent impact of U.S. business travel to foreign countries on their patenting rates. Business travel is shown to have a significant effect up and beyond technology transfer through international trade and foreign direct investment. On average, a 10 % increase in business travel leads to an increase in patenting by about 0.2 %, and inward business travel is about one fourth as potent for innovation as domestic R&D spending. We show that the technological knowledge of each business traveler matters by estimating a higher impact for travelers that originate in U.S. states with substantial innovation, such as California. This study provides initial evidence that international air travel may be an important channel through which cross-country income differences can be reduced. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (

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Access to new foreign technology is often central to countries' development strategies. However, we know very little about the quantitative impact of technology sourcing. In this paper, we study the role of outward international business travel for technology sourcing and innovation by examining whether patenting in European regions is affected by the number of business travelers heading to the United States.