The Emergence of Knowledge Production in New Places

This article studies how new locations emerge as advantageous places for the creation of ideas. Analysis of a novel patent-based dataset that traces the flow of knowledge between inventions and across time reveals that inventors initiate knowledge production in new places through a three-stage process. In the first stage, about 50 years before knowledge production in a region reaches an appreciable volume, local inventors begin to experiment with a few promising ideas developed in other places. In the second stage, inventors use the promising ideas developed elsewhere to create a large number of highly impactful inventions locally. In the third stage, inventors source high-impact ideas from their local environs and produce an even larger number of inventions, albeit of lower quality. Overall knowledge production in regions peaks in this third stage, but novelty and the potential for future knowledge growth decline.