The Inventive, the Educated, and the Creative: How Do They Affect Metropolitan Productivity?

José Lobo (), Charlotta Mellander, Kevin Stolarick () and Deborah Strumsky ()
Additional contact information
José Lobo: Arizona State University
Kevin Stolarick: University of Toronto
Deborah Strumsky: University of North Carolina-Charlotte

No 263, Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation from Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies

Abstract: A longstanding research tradition assumes that endogenous technological development increases regional productivity. It has been assumed that measures of regional patenting activity or human capital are an adequate way to capture the endogenous creation of new ideas that result in productivity improvements. This process has been conceived as occurring in two stages. First, an invention or innovation is generated, and then it is developed and commercialized to create benefits for the individual or firm owning the idea. Typically these steps are combined into a single model of the “invention in/productivity out” variety. Using data on Gross Metropolitan Product per worker and on inventors, educational attainment, and creative workers (together with other important socio-economic controls), we unpack the model back to the two-step process and use a SEM modeling framework to investigate the relationships among inventive activity and potential inventors, regional technology levels, and regional productivity outcomes. Our results show almost no significant direct relationship between invention and productivity, except through technology. Clearly, the simplification of the “invention in/productivity out” model does not hold, which supports other work that questions the use of patents and patenting related measures as meaningful innovation inputs to processes that generate regional productivity and productivity gains. We also find that the most effective measure of regional inventive capacity, in terms of its effect on technology, productivity, and productivity growth is the share of the workforce engaged in creative activities.

Keywords: Innovation; Productivity; Regional Technology; Patents; Human Capital; Creative Class (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 O10 O31 O47 R11 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2012-01-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-geo, nep-hrm, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://static.sys.kth.se/itm/wp/cesis/cesiswp263.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Inventive, the Educated and the Creative: How Do They Affect Metropolitan Productivity? (2014)
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:hhs:cesisp:0263

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation from Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vardan Hovsepyan ().