Abstract
In this paper we investigate the effects of technological and geographical proximity on knowledge flows in three economic areas: the United States, Japan, and Europe. The contribution to the existing literature is that we introduce a patent inventor approach to measuring the proximity between firms. Generally, patents are attributed to the economic area where firms are located. Here, patents are described on the basis of the distribution of their inventors. The empirical results indicate that there is a statistically significant impact of technological and geographical proximity on knowledge spillovers and that these results are robust with respect to patent office data.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
It is only for simplicity that we don’t introduce parameters capturing technological and geographical proximity.
We use the updated patent data (1975–2002) downloaded from Hall’s website: www.econ.berkeley.edu/~bhhall/patents.html
Please contact Helene.DERNIS@oecd.org to download REGPAT database
The European economic group involves the following countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom
See Cameron and Trivedi (2013) for a technical discussion of Poisson, NB1 and NB2 models.
We thank the reviewer for their suggestion for this point.
The industry sectors are: oil & gas, chemicals, basic resources, construction, manufacturing, automobiles, food & beverage, personal and household goods, health care, retail of food and drugs, media, travel & leisure, telecommunications, utilities, banks and high-technology.
References
Acemoglu, D . 1996: Microfoundation for social increasing returns in human capital accumulation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 111 (3): 779–804.
Acs, ZJ, Anselin, L and Varga, A . 2002: Patents and innovation counts as measures of regional production of new knowledge. Research Policy 31 (7): 1069–1085.
Aldieri, L . 2011: Technological and geographical proximity effects on knowledge spillovers: Evidence from the US patent citations. Economics of Innovation and New Technology 20 (6): 597–607.
Aldieri, L . 2013: Knowledge technological proximity: Evidence from US and European patents. Economics of Innovation and New Technology 22 (8): 807–819.
Aldieri, L and Cincera, M . 2009: Geographic and technological R&D spillovers within the triad: Micro evidence from US patents. The Journal of Technology Transfer 34 (2): 196–211.
Audretsch, DB and Feldman, MP . 1996: R&D spillovers and the geography of innovation and production. The American Economic Review 86 (3): 630–640.
Bottazzi, L and Peri, G . 2003: Innovation and spillovers in regions: Evidence from European patent data. European Economic Review 47 (4): 687–710.
Braczyk, HJ, Cooke, PN and Heidenreich, M . 1998: Regional innovation systems: The role of governances in a globalized world. London: UCL Press.
Caiazza, R and Audretsch, DB . 2013: A general framework for classifying spin-off. International Entrepreneurship Review 11 (1): 15–30.
Cameron, AC and Trivedi, PK . 2013: Regression Analysis of Count Data, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, WM and Levinthal, DA . 1990: Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly 35 (1): 128–152.
European Commission. 2013: The 2013 EU Industrial R&D Investments Scoreboard, JRC Scientific and Technical Research series, http://iri.jrc.ec.europa.eu/scoreboard.html, accessed 7 January 2014.
Feldman, MP and Audretsch, DB . 1999: Innovation in cities: Science-based diversity, specialization and localized competition. European Economic Review 43 (2): 409–429.
Greene, WR . 1994: Accounting for excess zeros and sample selection in poisson and binomial regression models. Working paper 94–10, New York University Stern School of Business, New York.
Griliches, Z . 1979: Issues in assessing the contribution of research and development to productivity growth. Bell Journal of Economics 10 (1): 92–116.
Hall, BH, Jaffe, AB and Trajtenberg, M . 2001: The NBER patent citations data file: lessons, insights and methodological tools. NBER Working Paper No. 8498, Cambridge, MA.
Jaffe, AB . 1986: Technological opportunity and spillovers of R&D: Evidence from firms’ patents, profits and market value. American Economic Review 76 (5): 984–1001.
Jaffe, AB, Trajtenberg, M and Henderson, R . 1993: Geographic localization of knowledge spillovers as evidenced by patent citations. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 108 (3): 577–598.
Lychagin, S, Pinkse, J, Slade, ME and Van Reenen, J . 2010: Spillovers in space: does geography matter? NBER Working Paper No. 16188, Cambridge, MA.
OECD. REGPAT database, February 2015.
Padmore, T and Gibson, H . 1998: Modelling systems of innovation: II. A framework for industrial cluster analysis in regions. Research Policy 26 (6): 625–641.
Vagnani, G . 2015: Exploration and long-run organizational performance: The moderating role of technological interdependence. Journal of Management 41 (6): 1651–1676.
Winkelmann, R and Zimmermann, K . 1995: Recent developments in count data modelling: Theory and application. Journal of Economic Surveys 9 (1): 1–24.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to two referees whose comments greatly improved the quality of the paper. Results, conclusions, views or opinions expressed in this paper are only attributable to the authors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Aldieri, L., Vinci, C. Knowledge Spillover Effects: A Patent Inventor Approach. Comp Econ Stud 58, 1–16 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/ces.2015.29
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ces.2015.29