Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

The knowledge economy and Dutch cities

Contents:

Author Info

  • Frank Van Oort

    ()

  • Otto Raspe

    ()

Abstract

How can cities and metropolitan regions remain prosperous and competitive in a rapidly changing economy? In our paper we argue that ‘the knowledge economy’ offers perspectives for growth and added value creation. The paper clarifies what elements the knowledge economy actually consists of, how it can be measured in statistical indicators, in which regions and cities in the Netherlands the knowledge economy has its most significant imprints and what statistical association there is between these regions and cities and relatively good economic performance of firms. We test two contrasting hypotheses often heard in the international literature. The current embedding of knowledge externalities in endogenous economic growth theory have led to important contributions that stress the urban character knowledge transmission in particular. The reasoning is that if knowledge spillovers and –externalities are important to growth and innovation, they should be more easily identified in cities where many people are concentrated into a relatively small geographic space so that knowledge can be transmitted between them more easily. Much recent research indeed finds a limited extent of spatial spillovers and a large degree of local clustering. Alternatively, a large body of literature on Western spatial configurations of innovation and high-technology firms predominantly stresses the supposed ‘urban field’ character of firm performance: location and agglomeration aspects do not seem to have a systematic impact on the distribution of innovative and growth inducing activities over space. We test the urban hypothesis using spatial econometric modeling techniques. On the one hand, the fact that a distance squared distance weight matrix in spatial lag estimations fits the performance data best in relation to knowledge economy factors indicates that spatial relations are limited and urban fixed. On the other hand, the significance of several spatial regimes though (especially those of the Randstad core region, the so-called intermediate zone and medium-sized cities) indicates that the urban structure related to the knowledge economy and economic performance is not straightforward hierarchical (largest cities are not the relatively most attached to the knowledge economy). Both hypotheses (urban and non-urban) are too extreme to fit the Dutch situation. We also conclude that the locational attributes of the factor ‘knowledge workers’ are much more significantly related to economic growth and added value (in practically all specifications over regimes and spatial lag estimations) than the R&D-based innovation input factor. This questions Dutch policy initiatives that mainly focus on R&D as stimulator of the ‘knowledge economy’.

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.
File URL: http://www-sre.wu-wien.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa05/papers/165.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by European Regional Science Association in its series ERSA conference papers with number ersa05p165.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Aug 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p165

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Web page: http://www.ersa.org

Related research

Keywords:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Egbert Wever & Erik Stam, 1999. "Clusters of High Technology SMEs: The Dutch Case," Regional Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 391-400.
  2. Godin, Benoit, 2004. "The New Economy: what the concept owes to the OECD," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 679-690, July.
  3. Jaffe, A.B. & Trajtenberg, M., 1992. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," Papers 14-92, Tel Aviv.
  4. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Patents, Citations, and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026260065x.
  5. Audretsch, David B & Feldman, Maryann P, 1996. "R&D Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 630-40, June.
  6. Dominique Foray, 2006. "The Economics of Knowledge," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262562235.
  7. Wallsten, Scott J., 2001. "An empirical test of geographic knowledge spillovers using geographic information systems and firm-level data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 571-599, September.
  8. Frank van Oort & Anet Weterings & Heleen Verlinde, 2003. "Residential amenities of knowledge workers and the location of ICT-FIrms in the Netherlands," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 94(4), pages 516-523, 09.
  9. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p165

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Gunther Maier).

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.