The place of new industries: the case of fuel cell technology and its technological relatedness to regional knowledge bases

Anne Nygaard Tanner ()

No 1113, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: The evolutionary turn in economic geography has proposed that regional diversification is a path-dependent process whereby new industries grow out of preexisting industrial structures through technologically related localized knowledge spillover. This paper examines if this also applies for industries developed around emerging radical technology. I develop a new measure for technological relatedness between the knowledge base of the region and that of a radical technology, namely, fuel cells. It is demonstrated that even in the case of a high degree of radicalness and discontinuity, knowledge generation is still cumulative in its spatial and cognitive dimensions, corroborating the evolutionary thesis.

Keywords: evolutionary economic geography; radical innovation; regional branching; technological relatedness; fuel cell technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 Q55 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2011-07, Revised 2011-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:1113

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