Geographic Constraints on Knowledge Spillovers: Political Borders vs. Spatial Proximity

Jasjit Singh () and Matt Marx ()
Additional contact information
Jasjit Singh: INSEAD, Singapore 138676
Matt Marx: MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142

Management Science, 2013, vol. 59, issue 9, 2056-2078

Abstract: Geographic localization of knowledge spillovers is a central tenet in multiple streams of research. However, prior work has typically examined this phenomenon considering only one geographic unit—country, state, or metropolitan area—at a time and has rarely accounted for spatial distance. We disentangle these multiple effects by using a regression framework employing choice-based sampling to estimate the likelihood of citation between random patents. We find both country and state borders to have independent effects on knowledge diffusion beyond what just geographic proximity in the form of metropolitan collocation or shorter within-region distances can explain. An identification methodology comparing inventor-added and examiner-added citation patterns points to an even stronger role of political borders. The puzzling state border effect remains robust on average across analyses, though it is found to have waned with time. The country effect has, in contrast, not only remained robust but even strengthened over time. This paper was accepted by Kamalini Ramdas, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Keywords: knowledge spillovers; borders; distance; economic geography; patent citation; innovation; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (97)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1700 (application/pdf)

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:inm:ormnsc:v:59:y:2013:i:9:p:2056-2078

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().