Inventors and the Geographical Breadth of Knowledge Soillovers
Abstract
This paper studies the geographical breadth of knowledge spillovers. Previous research suggests that knowledge spillovers benefit from geographical proximity in technologically active and rich regions more than elsewhere. An alternative view explains the geographical breadth of knowledge spillovers as a function of the characteristics and personal networks of the individuals. We test these two competing theories by using information provided directly by the inventors of 6,750 European patents (PatVal-EU survey). Our results confirm the importance of inventors’ personal background. However, compared to previous research, we find that the level of education of the inventors is key in shaping the geographical breadth of knowledge spillovers. Highly educated inventors rely more on geographically wide research networks than their less educated peers. This holds after controlling for the mobility of the inventors and for the scientific nature of the research performed. Differently, location matters only in the very rare regions in Europe that perform the bulk of the research in the specific discipline of the inventors.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies in its series DRUID Working Papers with number 08-01.Length:
Date of creation: 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:08-01
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.druid.dk/
Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Giuri, Paola & Mariani, Myriam, 2008. "Inventors and the Geographical Breadth of Knowledge Spillovers," Papers DYNREG31, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
- Paola Giuri & Myriam Mariani, 2007. "Inventors and the Geographical Breadth of Knowledge Spillovers," LEM Papers Series 2007/26, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
- O31 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change; Research and Development; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
- O33 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change; Research and Development; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
- R19 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Other
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2008-05-05 (All new papers)
- NEP-EDU-2008-05-05 (Education)
- NEP-EEC-2008-05-05 (European Economics)
- NEP-GEO-2008-05-05 (Economic Geography)
- NEP-IPR-2008-05-05 (Intellectual Property Rights)
- NEP-KNM-2008-05-05 (Knowledge Management & Knowledge Economy)
- NEP-NET-2008-05-05 (Network Economics)
- NEP-URE-2008-05-05 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)
References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Katharina Frosch, 2009. "Do only new brooms sweep clean? A review on workforce age and innovation," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-005, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
- Broström, Anders, 2010.
"Working with distant researchers--Distance and content in university-industry interaction,"
Research Policy,
Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 1311-1320, December.
- Broström, Anders, 2009. "Working with Distant Researchers - distance and content in university-industry interaction," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 173, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
- Olivier Bouba-Olga & Marie Ferru, 2012. "Does Geographical Proximity Still Matter?," Working Papers hal-00725073, HAL.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:08-01For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Keld Laursen).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

