Winner Takes All? Tech Clusters, Population Centers, and the Spatial Transformation of U.S. Invention

Brad Chattergoon and William Kerr

No 29456, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial concentration of patents and identify an underlying stability in their distribution. Software patents have exploded to account for about half of patents today, and these patents are highly concentrated in tech centers. Tech centers also account for a growing share of non-software patents, but the reallocation, by contrast, is entirely from the five largest population centers in 1980. Non-software patenting is stable for most cities, with anchor tenants like universities playing important roles, suggesting the growing concentration of invention may be nearing its end. Immigrant inventors and new businesses aided in the spatial transformation.

JEL-codes: L86 O30 O31 O32 O33 O34 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-his, nep-ino, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
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Published as B. Chattergoon & W.R. Kerr, 2022. "Winner takes all? Tech clusters, population centers, and the spatial transformation of U.S. invention," Research Policy, vol 51(2).

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Journal Article: Winner takes all? Tech clusters, population centers, and the spatial transformation of U.S. invention (2022)
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