How do geographically mobile innovators influence network formation?

Ernest Miguelez

No 1208, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: In this paper, I aim to assess the influence of spatial mobility of knowledge workers on the formation of ties of scientific and industrial collaboration across European regions. Co-location has been traditionally invoked to ease formal collaboration between individuals and firms. Tie formation is costly and decreases as distance between the partners involved increases, making ties between co-located individuals more likely than between spatially separated peers. In some instances, highly-skilled actors might become mobile and bridge regional networks across long physical distances. The effect of trust and mutual understanding between members of a co-located community may well survive the end of their co-localisation, and therefore the formation of networks across the space may overcome long distances. In this paper I estimate a fixed effects logit model to ascertain whether there exists a ‘previous co-location premium’ in the formation of networks across European regions. The role of mobility in network formation has been lately discussed elsewhere, but, to my knowledge, barely empirically tested.

Keywords: inventors’ mobility; technological collaborations; co-location; brain drain; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C8 J61 O31 O33 R0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2012-05, Revised 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-mig, nep-soc and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:1208

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