The geography of breakthrough invention in the United States over the 20th century

Christopher R. Esposito

Research Policy, 2023, vol. 52, issue 7

Abstract: The geography of breakthrough invention in the U.S. – defined as the spatial distribution of the production of patents that are both novel and impactful – underwent three broad changes during the 20th century. At the start of the century, breakthrough invention was concentrated in populous metropolitan areas with high levels of local knowledge variety. By the 1930s, breakthroughs were created less frequently across the entire country and so their invention had a less distinct geography. The substantial creation of breakthroughs resumed in the 1960s, and while their invention was once again concentrated in major metropolitan areas with high knowledge variety, they frequently involved long-distance collaboration. In this article, I document these changes and propose a theory to interpret why they occurred. The theory emphasizes how changes in inventors' institutional and communication technology environments influence the geographical locations that are advantageous for breakthrough invention. In support of the model, I find that the disruptiveness of the regime of technological change, the knowledge intensity of breakthroughs, the distance-based frictions incurred by collaboration technologies, and the distance-based frictions incurred by knowledge-sourcing technologies help to predict the spatial distribution of breakthrough invention. To conclude the article, I discuss lessons that the 20th century's geography of breakthrough innovation provide for anticipating the geography of innovation in the 21st century, including in the years beyond COVID-19.

Keywords: Innovation; Breakthroughs; Spatial inequality; Regions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004873332300094X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:52:y:2023:i:7:s004873332300094x

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2023.104810

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().