Trademarks as an indicator of regional innovation: evidence from Japanese prefectures

Joern Block, Christian Fisch, Kenta Ikeuchi and Masatoshi Kato

Regional Studies, 2022, vol. 56, issue 2, 190-209

Abstract: Regional science has long been concerned with measuring the spatial distribution of innovation activity. We introduce trademarks as a new indicator for regional innovation and argue that they are particularly useful to measure the ‘soft’ side of innovation that is difficult to capture with conventional indicators. We explore the spatial distribution of trademarks using a detailed and comprehensive dataset of 47 Japanese prefectures from 1999 to 2012. In addition to mapping differences in trademarking across regions, we identify correlates at the regional level that provide insights into determinants of regional innovation measured via trademarks. For example, regional trademark activity positively correlates with population density, income per capita, entrepreneurship rate, the number of universities, and strong private service and finance sectors. Overall, the results reveal associations unique to trademarks that other measures of innovation cannot uncover. Our findings contribute to research in regional science and the evolving literature on trademarks.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00343404.2021.1887843 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Trademarks as an indicator of regional innovation: Evidence from Japanese prefectures (2019)
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:taf:regstd:v:56:y:2022:i:2:p:190-209

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRES20

DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2021.1887843

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Studies is currently edited by Ivan Turok

More articles in Regional Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().