IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/keo/dpaper/2025-005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Marshall meets Bartik: Revisiting the mysteries of the trade

Author

Listed:
  • Yasusada Murata

    (College of Economics, Nihon University)

  • Ryo Nakajima

    (Department of Economics, Keio University)

Abstract

We identify a causal effect of top inventor inflows on the patent productivity of local inventors by combining the idea-generating process described by Marshall (1890) with the Bartik (1991) instruments involving the state taxes and commuting zone characteristics of the United States. We find that local productivity gains go beyond organizational boundaries and co-inventor relationships, which implies the partially nonexcludable good nature of knowledge in a spatial economy and pertains to the mysteries of the trade in the air. Our counterfactual experiment suggests that the spatial distribution of inventive activity is substantially distorted by the presence of heterogeneity in state taxes.

Suggested Citation

  • Yasusada Murata & Ryo Nakajima, 2025. "Marshall meets Bartik: Revisiting the mysteries of the trade," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2025-005, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    • Handle: RePEc:keo:dpaper:2025-005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ies.keio.ac.jp/upload/DP2025-005_EN.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. I. P. L. Png, 2017. "Secrecy and Patents: Theory and Evidence from the Uniform Trade Secrets Act," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(3), pages 176-193, September.
    2. Kirill Borusyak & Peter Hull & Xavier Jaravel, 2022. "Quasi-Experimental Shift-Share Research Designs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 181-213.
    3. George J. Borjas & Kirk B. Doran, 2021. "The Collapse Of The Soviet Union And The Productivity Of American Mathematicians," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 11, pages 313-373, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Yasusada Murata & Ryo Nakajima & Ryosuke Okamoto & Ryuichi Tamura, 2014. "Localized Knowledge Spillovers and Patent Citations: A Distance-Based Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 967-985, December.
    5. Chernozhukov, Victor & Hansen, Christian, 2008. "The reduced form: A simple approach to inference with weak instruments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 68-71, July.
    6. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 577-598.
    7. Jorge De La Roca & Diego Puga, 2017. "Learning by Working in Big Cities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 106-142.
    8. Ashesh Rambachan & Jonathan Roth, 2023. "A More Credible Approach to Parallel Trends," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(5), pages 2555-2591.
    9. Kawika Pierson & Michael L Hand & Fred Thompson, 2015. "The Government Finance Database: A Common Resource for Quantitative Research in Public Financial Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-22, June.
    10. Rodrigo Ad~ao & Michal Koles'ar & Eduardo Morales, 2018. "Shift-Share Designs: Theory and Inference," Papers 1806.07928, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2019.
    11. Enrico Moretti & Daniel J. Wilson, 2017. "The Effect of State Taxes on the Geographical Location of Top Earners: Evidence from Star Scientists," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 1858-1903, July.
    12. Kirill Borusyak & Peter Hull & Xavier Jaravel, 2025. "A Practical Guide to Shift-Share Instruments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 181-204, Winter.
    13. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Issues in Assessing the Contribution of Research and Development to Productivity Growth," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 17-45, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Rodrigo Adão & Michal Kolesár & Eduardo Morales, 2019. "Shift-Share Designs: Theory and Inference," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 1949-2010.
    15. Kelejian, Harry H & Prucha, Ingmar R, 1998. "A Generalized Spatial Two-Stage Least Squares Procedure for Estimating a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 99-121, July.
    16. I. P. L. Png, 2017. "Law and Innovation: Evidence from State Trade Secrets Laws," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 167-179, March.
    17. Jan K. Brueckner, 2003. "Strategic Interaction Among Governments: An Overview of Empirical Studies," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 175-188, April.
    18. Roback, Jennifer, 1982. "Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1257-1278, December.
    19. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    20. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    21. Isaiah Andrews & James H. Stock & Liyang Sun, 2019. "Weak Instruments in Instrumental Variables Regression: Theory and Practice," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 727-753, August.
    22. Marta Prato, 2025. "The Global Race for Talent: Brain Drain, Knowledge Transfer, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 140(1), pages 165-238.
    23. Michael J. Andrews, 2023. "How Do Institutions of Higher Education Affect Local Invention? Evidence from the Establishment of US Colleges," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 1-41, May.
    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. Yasusada Murata & Ryo Nakajima, 2023. "Marshall meets Bartik: Revisiting the mysteries of the trade," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-015, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    2. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    3. Francesco Campo & Mariapia Mendola & Andrea Morrison & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2022. "Talents and Cultures: Immigrant Inventors and Ethnic Diversity in the Age of Mass Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(5), pages 1971-2012.
    4. Keith Head & Yao Amber Li & Asier Minondo, 2019. "Geography, Ties, and Knowledge Flows: Evidence from Citations in Mathematics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 713-727, October.
    5. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    6. Nathan, Max, 2013. "The Wider Economic Impacts of High-Skilled Migrants: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Contigiani, Andrea & Testoni, Marco, 2023. "Geographic isolation, trade secrecy, and innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(8).
    8. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512111472 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Anna Bottasso & Maurizio Conti & Simone Robbiano & Marta Santagata, 2022. "Roads to innovation: Evidence from Italy," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 981-1005, September.
    10. repec:osf:socarx:rfqvt_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Benjamin Balsmeier & Lee Fleming & Matt Marx & Seungryul Ryan Shin, 2020. "Startups, Unicorns, and the Local Inflow of Inventors," NBER Working Papers 27605, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Antoine Dechezlepretre & Elias Einio & Ralf Martin & Kieu-Trang Nguyen & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Do tax incentives for research increase firm innovation? An RD design for R&D," GRI Working Papers 230, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    13. Zacchia, Paolo, 2018. "Benefiting colleagues but not the city: Localized effects from the relocation of superstar inventors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 992-1005.
    14. Huang, Kaixing, 2024. "The Green Revolution, grain imports, and income divergence in the developing world," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    15. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    16. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2015_027 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Dr Max Nathan, 2013. "The wider economic impacts of high-skilled migrants: a survey of the literature," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 413, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    18. Miriam Fritzsche, 2024. "De-industrialization, local joblessness and the male-female employment gap," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0040, Berlin School of Economics.
    19. Haifeng Qian, 2018. "Knowledge-Based Regional Economic Development: A Synthetic Review of Knowledge Spillovers, Entrepreneurship, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 32(2), pages 163-176, May.
    20. Carlo Medici, 2024. "Closing Ranks: Organized Labor and Immigration," CESifo Working Paper Series 11437, CESifo.
    21. Siwei Cao & Guangrong Ma & Hao Mao, 2024. "Is distance really dying? Transportation and knowledge spillovers," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(2), pages 355-405, March.
    22. Nathan, Max, 2013. "The Wider Economic Impacts of High-Skilled Migrants: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. repec:zbw:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512111472 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Pallante, Gianluca & Russo, Emanuele & Roventini, Andrea, 2023. "Does public R&D funding crowd-in private R&D investment? Evidence from military R&D expenditures for US states," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(8).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    patent productivity; inventor migration; knowledge spillovers; knowledge sharing; Bartik instruments; mysteries of the trade; idea-generating process;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    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:keo:dpaper:2025-005. 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: Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iekeijp.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.