Relatedness, Cross-relatedness and Regional Innovation Specializations: An Analysis of Technology, Design and Market Activities in Europe and the US

Carolina Castaldi and Kyriakos Drivas

No 2307, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: This paper examines how regions develop new innovation specializations, covering different activities in the whole process from technological invention to commercialization. We develop a conceptual framework anchored in two building blocks: first, the conceptualization of innovation as a process spanning technology, design and market activities; second, the application and extension of the principle of relatedness to understand developments within and between the different innovation activities. We offer an empirical investigation where we operationalize the different innovation activities using three intellectual property rights (IPRs): patents, industrial designs and trademarks. We provide two separate analyses of how relatedness and cross-relatedness matter for the emergence of new specializations: for 259 NUTS-2 European regions and for 363 MSAs of the US. While relatedness is significantly associated with new regional specializations for all three innovation activities, cross-relatedness between activities also plays a significant role. Our study has important policy implications for developing and monitoring Smart Specialization regional strategies.

Keywords: innovation; relatedness; regional specialization; patents; trademarks; designs; NUTS-2 regions; Metropolitan Statistical Areas. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O34 O38 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-03, Revised 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-des, nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
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Journal Article: Relatedness, Cross-relatedness and Regional Innovation Specializations: An Analysis of Technology, Design, and Market Activities in Europe and the US (2023)
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