Abstract
There is a wide agreement that high-tech start-ups can be regarded as a driving force of economic growth in general. In particular, they have been seen as a crucial element in the attempt to close the productivity gap between Eastern and Western Germany. This chapter makes a modest attempt to identify regional differences in start-up activities in Eastern Germany. Particular attention is paid to the question of whether R&D infrastructure is able to attract high-tech start-ups. The impact of the proximity and size of publicly financed R&D institutions is emphasised, as well as the role of large firms as incubators for start-up activities, and the importance of the concentration of economic activities is analysed.
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Endnotes
We gratefully acknowledge critical comments on this chapter by Georg Licht. We are also indebted to the valuable contribution of Sandra Gottschalk, Jürgen Moka, Juliane Lauer, Heni Haász, Paul Jurkiewicz and Emil Marinov in preparing the data.
Berlin is exc l uded, be c ause of the strong d ifferen ces in the development in this city and other East German counties.
Some postcode areas are very small. A definition of ‘most technology-intensive regions’ is also possible by taking the relative number, even when only a small number of hightech start ups in those areas is observed. For this reason we accepted a postcode area as most technology-intensive only when the absolute number was above a lower critical value [65 percentile]:
The Fraunhofer-Society is the leading institute of applied research in Germany. A staff of around 9,000 is employed at 47 research establishments throughout Germany, most of them scientists and engineers. The work of the Max-Planck-Society concentrates on basic research, especially in key areas not established at universities. The emphasis of research is on physics, chemistry, biology and medical science.
Technology and Foundation Centres [TFC] have existed since 1983 in West Germany and since 1990 in East Germany. In East Germany there are about 50 such centres.
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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Engel, D., Fier, A. (2001). Does R&D Infrastructure Attract High-Tech Start-Ups?. In: Fischer, M.M., Fröhlich, J. (eds) Knowledge, Complexity and Innovation Systems. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04546-6_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04546-6_19
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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