Regional R&D Decentralization and Breakthrough Inventions: A Tale of Two Mechanisms

Raffaele Conti

Industry and Innovation, 2015, vol. 22, issue 1, 59-78

Abstract: This study explores the relationship between regional R&D decentralization--i.e. the extent to which R&D activity is distributed among distinct firms collocated in the same geographic area and operating in the same technological domain--and the generation of breakthrough inventions. R&D decentralization might affect the chance of generating breakthrough inventions in two distinct ways. On the one hand, firms might just search in parallel along diverse technological paths, which augments the probability that at least some trajectories will lead to extremely valuable inventions. On the other hand, firms pursuing diverse paths might also exchange knowledge with each other, for instance through inventors' mobility, and such recombination possibly leads to a higher likelihood of producing breakthroughs. By assessing (a) the impact of R&D decentralization on the share of breakthrough inventions and (b) how this impact changes according to the rate of inventors' mobility in regions, this paper aims at understanding which mechanism, if any, actually operates.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/13662716.2015.1012829

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