IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/egu/wpaper/2422.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the urban bias of patents and the scaling of innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Josef Taalbi
  • Mikhail Martynovich

Abstract

While recent studies have heralded large cities as “innovation machines†, the majority of regional studies of innovation are based on patent indicators. In this paper, we compare regional patent and innovation counts in Sweden (1970-2014) and document the presence of a sizeable urban bias in patent indicators, which is primarily explained by higher patent filing propensity in urban areas. We also show that using administrative spatial units which do not account for spatial organization of economic activity tends to exacerbate this bias. This poses a problem for academic studies that wish to understand regional innovation, or policy reports benchmarking regional performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Josef Taalbi & Mikhail Martynovich, 2024. "On the urban bias of patents and the scaling of innovation," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2422, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:egu:wpaper:2422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg2422.pdf
    File Function: Version July 2024
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bettencourt, Luis M.A. & Lobo, Jose & Strumsky, Deborah, 2007. "Invention in the city: Increasing returns to patenting as a scaling function of metropolitan size," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 107-120, February.
    2. Higham, Kyle & de Rassenfosse, Gaétan & Jaffe, Adam B., 2021. "Patent Quality: Towards a Systematic Framework for Analysis and Measurement," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(4).
    3. Fritsch, Michael & Wyrwich, Michael, 2021. "Is innovation (increasingly) concentrated in large cities? An international comparison," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).
    4. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring.
    5. Alegre-Vidal, Joaquin & Lapiedra-Alcami, Rafael & Chiva-Gomez, Ricardo, 2004. "Linking operations strategy and product innovation: an empirical study of Spanish ceramic tile producers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 829-839, July.
    6. Archibugi, Daniele & Coco, Alberto, 2005. "Measuring technological capabilities at the country level: A survey and a menu for choice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 175-194, March.
    7. Grupp, Hariolf & Mogee, Mary Ellen, 2004. "Indicators for national science and technology policy: how robust are composite indicators?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1373-1384, November.
    8. Criscuolo, Paola & Verspagen, Bart, 2008. "Does it matter where patent citations come from? Inventor vs. examiner citations in European patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 1892-1908, December.
    9. L. M.A. Bettencourt & J. Lobo & G. B. West, 2008. "Why are large cities faster? Universal scaling and self-similarity in urban organization and dynamics," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 63(3), pages 285-293, June.
    10. Josh Lerner, 2009. "The Empirical Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on Innovation: Puzzles and Clues," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 343-348, May.
    11. Jung Won Sonn & In Kwon Park, 2011. "The Increasing Importance of Agglomeration Economies Hidden behind Convergence," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(10), pages 2180-2194, August.
    12. Fontana, Roberto & Nuvolari, Alessandro & Shimizu, Hiroshi & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2013. "Reassessing patent propensity: Evidence from a dataset of R&D awards, 1977–2004," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1780-1792.
    13. Tom Broekel & Louis Knuepling & Lars Mewes, 2023. "Boosting, sorting and complexity—urban scaling of innovation around the world," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(5), pages 979-1016.
    14. Carolina Castaldi & Koen Frenken & Bart Los, 2015. "Related Variety, Unrelated Variety and Technological Breakthroughs: An analysis of US State-Level Patenting," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 767-781, May.
    15. Wulong Gu & Jianmin Tang, 2004. "Link between innovation and productivity in Canadian manufacturing industries," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(7), pages 671-686.
    16. Alfred Kleinknecht & Kees Van Montfort & Erik Brouwer, 2002. "The Non-Trivial Choice between Innovation Indicators," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 109-121.
    17. Josef Taalbi, 2022. "Innovation with and without patents," Papers 2210.04102, arXiv.org.
    18. Santarelli, Enrico & Piergiovanni, Roberta, 1996. "Analyzing literature-based innovation output indicators: the Italian experience," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 689-711, August.
    19. Teemu Makkonen & Robert P. Have, 2013. "Benchmarking regional innovative performance: composite measures and direct innovation counts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 247-262, January.
    20. Diego Puga, 2010. "The Magnitude And Causes Of Agglomeration Economies," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 203-219, February.
    21. J. Lobo & D. Strumsky & J. Rothwell, 2013. "Scaling of patenting with urban population size: evidence from global metropolitan areas," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(3), pages 819-828, September.
    22. Hollenstein, Heinz, 1996. "A composite indicator of a firm's innovativeness. An empirical analysis based on survey data for Swiss manufacturing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 633-645, June.
    23. Carlino, Gerald A. & Chatterjee, Satyajit & Hunt, Robert M., 2007. "Urban density and the rate of invention," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 389-419, May.
    24. Coad, Alex & Rao, Rekha, 2008. "Innovation and firm growth in high-tech sectors: A quantile regression approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 633-648, May.
    25. Arthur, W. Brian, 2007. "The structure of invention," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 274-287, March.
    26. Harhoff, Dietmar & Gambardella, Alfonso & Verspagen, Bart, 2008. "The Value of European Patents," CEPR Discussion Papers 6848, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    27. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Cristian Jara-Figueroa & Sergio G. Petralia & Mathieu P. A. Steijn & David L. Rigby & César A. Hidalgo, 2020. "Complex economic activities concentrate in large cities," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(3), pages 248-254, March.
    28. Zoltan J. Acs & Luc Anselin & Attila Varga, 2008. "Patents and Innovation Counts as Measures of Regional Production of New Knowledge," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 11, pages 135-151, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    29. Gilbert, Brett Anitra & McDougall, Patricia P. & Audretsch, David B., 2008. "Clusters, knowledge spillovers and new venture performance: An empirical examination," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 405-422, July.
    30. Josh Lerner & Amit Seru, 2022. "The Use and Misuse of Patent Data: Issues for Finance and Beyond," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(6), pages 2667-2704.
    31. Arundel, Anthony & Kabla, Isabelle, 1998. "What percentage of innovations are patented? empirical estimates for European firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 127-141, June.
    32. Nicoletta Corrocher & Franco Malerba & Andrea Morrison, 2021. "Technological regimes, patent growth, and catching-up in green technologies [Global Innovation Systems—a conceptual framework for innovation dynamics in transnational contexts]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(4), pages 1084-1107.
    33. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    34. Grupp, Hariolf & Schubert, Torben, 2010. "Review and new evidence on composite innovation indicators for evaluating national performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 67-78, February.
    35. Taalbi, Josef, 2017. "What drives innovation? Evidence from economic history," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1437-1453.
    36. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Nelson, Andrew J., 2009. "Measuring knowledge spillovers: What patents, licenses and publications reveal about innovation diffusion," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 994-1005, July.
    38. Michael Roach & Wesley M. Cohen, 2013. "Lens or Prism? Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows from Public Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 504-525, October.
    39. Mikhail Martynovich & Josef Taalbi, 2023. "Dynamic recombinant relatedness and its role for regional innovation," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 1070-1094, May.
    40. Gerben van der Panne & Cees van Beers, 2006. "On the Marshall--Jacobs controversy: it takes two to tango," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 15(5), pages 877-890, October.
    41. Joshua Lerner, 1994. "The Importance of Patent Scope: An Empirical Analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 319-333, Summer.
    42. Benedetto Lepori & Rémi Barré & Ghislaine Filliatreau, 2008. "New perspectives and challenges for the design and production of S&T indicators," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 33-44, March.
    43. Markus Grillitsch & Magnus Nilsson, 2015. "Innovation in peripheral regions: Do collaborations compensate for a lack of local knowledge spillovers?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(1), pages 299-321, January.
    44. Dziallas, Marisa & Blind, Knut, 2019. "Innovation indicators throughout the innovation process: An extensive literature analysis," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 80, pages 3-29.
    45. Luís M A Bettencourt & José Lobo & Deborah Strumsky & Geoffrey B West, 2010. "Urban Scaling and Its Deviations: Revealing the Structure of Wealth, Innovation and Crime across Cities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-9, November.
    46. Richard Florida & Patrick Adler & Charlotta Mellander, 2017. "The city as innovation machine," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 86-96, January.
    47. Zoltan Acs & David Audretsch, 1990. "Innovation and Small Firms," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011131, April.
    48. Gerben Panne, 2007. "Issues in measuring innovation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 71(3), pages 495-507, June.
    49. Gerben van der Panne & Cees van Beers, 2006. "On the Marshall - Jacobs Controversy It takes two to tango," DRUID Working Papers 06-23, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    50. Mariagrazia Squicciarini & Hélène Dernis & Chiara Criscuolo, 2013. "Measuring Patent Quality: Indicators of Technological and Economic Value," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2013/3, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Teemu Makkonen & Robert P. Have, 2013. "Benchmarking regional innovative performance: composite measures and direct innovation counts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 247-262, January.
    2. Dziallas, Marisa & Blind, Knut, 2019. "Innovation indicators throughout the innovation process: An extensive literature analysis," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 80, pages 3-29.
    3. Kenneth Zahringer & Christos Kolympiris & Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes, 2017. "Academic knowledge quality differentials and the quality of firm innovation," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(5), pages 821-844.
    4. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & Esther Ferrándiz & Manuel Jiménez, 2022. "Effects of knowledge spillovers between competitors on patent quality: what patent citations reveal about a global duopoly," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1451-1487, October.
    5. Fritsch, Michael & Wyrwich, Michael, 2021. "Is innovation (increasingly) concentrated in large cities? An international comparison," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).
    6. Ron Boschma & Ernest Miguelez & Rosina Moreno & Diego B. Ocampo-Corrales, 2021. "Technological breakthroughs in European regions: the role of related and unrelated combinations," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2118, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2021.
    7. Carolina Castaldi, 2024. "The geography of urban innovation beyond patents only: New evidence on large and secondary cities in the United States," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(7), pages 1248-1272, May.
    8. Mikhail Martynovich & Josef Taalbi, 2020. "Related variety, recombinant knowledge and regional innovation. Evidence for Sweden, 1991-2010," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2015, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Mar 2020.
    9. Pintar, Nico & Scherngell, Thomas, 2022. "The complex nature of regional knowledge production: Evidence on European regions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    10. Josef Taalbi, 2022. "Innovation with and without patents," Papers 2210.04102, arXiv.org.
    11. Lars Mewes, 2018. "Scaling of Atypical Knowledge Combinations in American Metropolitan Areas from 1836 to 2010," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1841, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Nov 2018.
    12. Jos� Lobo & Charlotta Mellander & Kevin Stolarick & Deborah Strumsky, 2014. "The Inventive, the Educated and the Creative: How Do They Affect Metropolitan Productivity?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 155-177, February.
    13. Fontana, Roberto & Nuvolari, Alessandro & Shimizu, Hiroshi & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2013. "Reassessing patent propensity: Evidence from a dataset of R&D awards, 1977–2004," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1780-1792.
    14. Krzysztof Klincewicz & Szymon Szumiał, 2022. "Successful patenting—not only how, but with whom: the importance of patent attorneys," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5111-5137, September.
    15. Hötte, Kerstin, 2023. "Demand-pull, technology-push, and the direction of technological change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(5).
    16. Dirk Czarnitzki & Katrin Hussinger & Bart Leten, 2020. "How Valuable are Patent Blocking Strategies?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 56(3), pages 409-434, May.
    17. Ugo Rizzo & Nicolò Barbieri & Laura Ramaciotti & Demian Iannantuono, 2020. "The division of labour between academia and industry for the generation of radical inventions," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 393-413, April.
    18. Pontus Braunerhjelm & Roger Svensson, 2024. "Inventions, commercialization strategies, and knowledge spillovers in SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 275-297, June.
    19. Pfister, Curdin & Koomen, Miriam & Harhoff, Dietmar & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2021. "Regional innovation effects of applied research institutions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(4).
    20. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2020. "Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regional Innovation; Patents; Urban Scaling; Urban Bias of Patents;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:egu:wpaper:2422. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deguunl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.