Does 'Clustering' really help firms'innovative activities?

Catherine Beaudry and Stefano Breschi ()

No 111, CESPRI Working Papers from CESPRI, Centre for Research on Innovation and Internationalisation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy

Abstract: This paper examines whether location in strong industrial clusters translates into a higher probability of innovating. A firm-level analysis of the UK and Italy is performed. Innovative activities of firms (European patent data for 1988-98) are related to regional employment, other cluster-specific and firm-specific variables. Clustering per se does not explain all of a firm's inno-vative performance. While location in a cluster densely populated by innovative firms positively af-fects the likelihood of innovating, strong disadvantages arise from the presence of non-innova-tive firms, both in own and other sectors industries. Firms' innovative persistence and the regional knowledge stock are also important.

Keywords: Clusters; Innovation; Knowledge; Spillovers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L10 O30 O40 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tid
Date: 2000-02, Revised 2000-07
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