Do inventors talk to strangers? On proximity and collaborative knowledge creation

Riccardo Crescenzi, Max Nathan and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper investigates how physical, organisational, institutional, cognitive, social, and ethnic proximities between inventors shape their collaboration decisions. Using a new panel of UK inventors and a novel identification strategy, this paper systematically explores the net effects of all these ‘proximities’ on co-patenting. The regression analysis allows us to identify the full effects of each proximity, both on choice of collaborator and on the underlying decision to collaborate. The results show that physical proximity is an important influence on collaboration, but is mediated by organisational and ethnic factors. Over time, physical proximity increases in salience. For multiple inventors, geographic proximity is, however, much less important than organisational, social, and ethnic links. For inventors as a whole, proximities are fundamentally complementary, while for multiple inventors they are substitutes.

Keywords: innovation; patents; proximities; cities; regions; knowledge spillovers; collaboration; ethnicity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O33 R11 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57926/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do inventors talk to strangers? On proximity and collaborative knowledge creation (2016)
Working Paper: Do inventors talk to strangers? On proximity and collaborative knowledge creation (2016)
Working Paper: Do Inventors Talk to Strangers? On Proximity and Collaborative Knowledge Creation (2014)
Working Paper: Do inventors talk to strangers? On proximity and collaborative knowledge creation (2013)
Working Paper: Do inventors talk to strangers? On proximity and collaborative knowledge creation (2013)
Working Paper: Do Inventors Talk to Strangers? On Proximity and Collaborative Knowledge Creation (2013)
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