Urban Agglomeration and Firm Innovation: Evidence from Developing Asia

Liming Chen, Rana Hasan and Yi Jiang

No 9861, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between urban agglomeration and firm innovation using a recently developed dataset that consistently measures city boundaries across Asia together with geo-referenced firm-level data. It finds that the spatial distribution of innovation by firms is highly concentrated within countries. Further, firms in larger cities have substantially higher propensities to introduce product and process innovations and undertake R&D activities, a result that holds for subgroups of countries and even when the largest cities are excluded from the analysis. Finally, the presence of high quality universities and highly ranked engineering departments in cities is positively associated with firm innovation, lending support to the idea that the accumulation of human capital locally is a key channel through which urban agglomeration affects innovation.

Keywords: Innovation; Urban Governance and Management; Municipal Management and Reform; Common Carriers Industry; Food & Beverage Industry; General Manufacturing; Textiles; Apparel & Leather Industry; Pulp & Paper Industry; Construction Industry; Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies; Plastics & Rubber Industry; Skills Development and Labor Force Training; Railways Transport (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-11-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-geo, nep-sbm, nep-sea and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9861

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