Same Place, Same Knowledge – Same People? The Geography of Non-Patent Citations in Dutch Polymer Patents

Dominik Heinisch, Önder Nomaler, Guido Buenstorf, Koen Frenken and Harry Lintsen

No 1526, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: It has long been argued that geographic co-location supports knowledge spillovers. More recently, this argument has been challenged by showing that knowledge spillovers mainly flow through social networks, which may or may not be localized at various geographic scales. We further scrutinize the conjecture of geographically bounded knowledge spillovers by focusing on knowledge flows between academia and industry. Looking into citations to non-patent literature (NPL) in 2,385 Dutch polymer patents, we find that citation lags are shorter on average if Dutch rather than foreign NPLs are cited. However, when excluding individual and organizational self-citations, geographically proximate NPLs no longer diffuse faster than foreign NPLs. This suggests that knowledge is not “in the air” but transferred by mobile individuals and/or direct university-industry collaboration. Our findings moreover suggest an important role of international conferences in the diffusion of recent scientific knowledge.

Keywords: Non-patent literature; citation lags; knowledge spillovers; university-industry interaction; polymer industry. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L65 O33 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-08, Revised 2015-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm and nep-ure
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Working Paper: Same Place, Same Knowledge – Same People? The Geography of Non-Patent Citations in Dutch Polymer Patents (2015)
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