Geographic concentration of innovative activities in GermanyDirk Fornahl () and Thomas Brenner () Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2009, vol. 20, issue 3, pages 163-182 Abstract: The geographic concentration of industries has attracted much attention in recent economic and geographic literature. One mechanism employed to explain the emergence and comparative advantage of industrial agglomerations is based on the relationship between industrial agglomeration and local knowledge production and diffusion, and the resulting innovation activities. This paper analyses this relationship by identifying geographic concentrations of innovation activities and examining different causes for the emergence of these concentrations. The paper applies different concentration measures to patent data for German regions. We analyse 43 technological fields separately to identify which of these technologies tend to cluster in geographic space. The results are discussed in light of theoretical predictions of why specific technological fields concentrate while others do not. These explanations include the concentration of industrial activities, the role of dominant firms, dependence on scientific knowledge, and local interactions. Keywords: Spatial; concentration; Innovation; Technology; Concentration; indices (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:20:y:2009:i:3:p:163-182 Access Statistics for this article Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier |
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