The Principle of Relatedness

Cesar Hidalgo, Pierre-Alexandre Balland, Ron Boschma (r.a.boschma@uu.nl), Mercedes Delgado, Maryann Feldma, Koen Frenken, Edward Glaeser, Canfei He, Dieter Kogler, Andrea Morrison, Frank Neffke, David Rigby, Scott Stern, Siqi Zheng and Shengjun Zhu

No 1830, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: The idea that skills, technology, and knowledge, are spatially concentrated, has a long academic tradition. Yet, only recently this hypothesis has been empirically formalized and corroborated at multiple spatial scales, for different economic activities, and for a diversity of institutional regimes. The new synthesis is an empirical principle describing the probability that a region enters - or exits - an economic activity as a function of the number of related activities pre- sent in that location. In this paper we summarize some of the recent empirical evidence that has generalized the principle of relatedness to a fact describing the entry and exit of products, industries, occupations, and technologies, at the national, regional, and metropolitan scales. We conclude by describing some of the policy implications and future avenues of research implied by this robust empirical principle.

Keywords: economic complexity; relatedness; economic geography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-07, Revised 2018-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-hpe, nep-ino, nep-tid and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

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