Mapping firms’ locations in technological space: A topological analysis of patent statistics

Emerson G. Escolar, Yasuaki Hiraoka, Mitsuru Igami and Yasin Ozcan

Research Policy, 2023, vol. 52, issue 8

Abstract: Where do firms innovate? Mapping their locations and directions in technological space is challenging due to its high dimensionality. We propose a new method to characterize firms’ inventive activities via topological data analysis (TDA) that represents high-dimensional data in a shape graph. Applying this method to 333 major firms’ patents in 1976–2005 reveals hitherto undocumented industry dynamics: some firms remain undifferentiated; others develop unique portfolios. Firms with unique trajectories, which we define and measure graph-theoretically as “flares” in the Mapper graph, tend to perform better. This association is statistically and economically significant, and continues to hold after we control for portfolio size, firm survivorship, and industry classification.

Keywords: Innovation; Mapper; Patents; R&D; Topological data analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C65 C88 L10 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733323001051
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:52:y:2023:i:8:s0048733323001051

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2023.104821

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().