Six degrees of cultural diversity and R&D output efficiency

Annie Tubadji and Peter Nijkamp

Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, 2016, vol. 9, issue 3, No 2, 247-264

Abstract: Abstract This paper seeks to highlight the efficiency of R&D output as a function of a cultural treatment (i.e. exposure) effect. The focus of our research is on the percolation of new R&D ideas from the immaterial world of creative ideas through the cultural lattice of the locality into the documented world of knowledge. Our conceptual model is illustrated with a novel numerical operationalization of the cultural percolation of ideas hypothesis, based on the six degrees of separation literature and using a dataset compiled from EUROSTAT and the European Social Survey. The estimation strategy for the current work relies on a difference-in-differences method from a network percolation approach, with a series of alternative controls and region-fixed effects. The results show a positive significant role of the stability (‘no change’) of the six degrees of cultural diversity (i.e., the likelihood to have six people in a row in a locality originating from a culturally different origin) as a treatment effect for R&D output efficiency (the latter being measured as the number of new ideas over a millions of euros of R&D investments). The main value added of the paper is that it offers a theoretical justification and numerical illustration on how the six degrees of separation paradigm can be used to approximate the tipping point of the percolation of new ideas through the local social network from the pool of ideas to efficient R&D investment decisions.

Keywords: Innovation; Percolation; Culture; Knowledge; Six degrees of cultural likeness; Cultural limit of the function of attitude (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O32 O33 O43 R11 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12076-015-0155-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:lsprsc:v:9:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s12076-015-0155-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/12076

DOI: 10.1007/s12076-015-0155-1

Access Statistics for this article

Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences is currently edited by Henk Folmer and Amitrajeet A. Batabyal

More articles in Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().