On 27.03.2015, Dr. Esther Goya successfully defended her doctoral thesis "Essays on innovation, productivity and knowledge flows: Evidence for Spanish firms" supervised by Dr. Esther Vayá and Dr. Jordi Suriñach, in the Sala de Graus at the Faculty of Economics and Business.

The Doctoral Committee was composed by Dr. Stefano Usai, Dr. Elena Huergo and Dr. Rosina Moreno. Her dissertation consists of three empirical studies which represent new contributions to the empirical research of the impact of knowledge flows on the relationship between innovation and firm performance. Specifically, the thesis provides new evidence on: 1) the importance of spillovers on firm performance, 2) the impact of external knowledge flows on firm behaviour and firm productivity using a structural model and 3) how internal knowledge flows affect firm’s innovative performance.