Culture and diversity in knowledge creation

Marcus Berliant and Masahisa Fujita

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Is the paradise of effortless communication the ideal environment for knowledge creation? Or, can the development of local culture in regions raise knowledge productivity compared to a single region with a unitary culture? In other words, can a real technological increase in the cost of collaboration and the cost of public knowledge flow between regions, resulting in cultural differentiation between regions, increase welfare? In our framework, a culture is a set of ideas held exclusively by residents of a location. In general in our model, the equilibrium path generates separate cultures in different regions. When we compare this to the situation where all workers are resident in one region, R & D workers become too homogeneous and there is only one culture. As a result, equilibrium productivity in the creation of new knowledge is lower relative to the situation when there are multiple cultures and workers are more diverse.

Keywords: knowledge creation; knowledge diversity; ideas and culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 O31 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-02-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-cul, nep-knm, nep-mic and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Culture and diversity in knowledge creation (2012)
Working Paper: Culture and Diversity in Knowledge Creation (2011)
Working Paper: Culture and diversity in knowledge creation (2011)
Working Paper: Culture and diversity in knowledge creation (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:36996

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