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

Joern Block, Christian Fisch (), Kenta Ikeuchi and Masatoshi Kato
Additional contact information
Christian Fisch: Faculty of Management, Trier University / Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) and Erasmus Institute of Management (ERIM), Erasmus University Rotterdam

No 200, Discussion Paper Series from School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University

Abstract: Regional science has long been concerned with measuring the spatial distribution of innovation activity. While patents are frequently used as an indicator of regional innovation, we introduce trademarks as an additional indicator. Specifically, we explore the spatial distribution of trademark applications using a detailed and comprehensive dataset of 47 Japanese prefectures from 1999 to 2012. In addition to mapping differences in trademarks across regions, we identify correlates at the regional level that provide initial insights into potential determinants of regional innovation. For example, regional trademark activity is positively associated with regional entrepreneurship and with strong private service and finance sectors. Overall, our results reveal associations unique to trademarks that patent-based measures of innovation cannot uncover. With these results, we contribute to research in regional science and to the evolving literature on trademarks of this discipline.

Keywords: Trademarks; regional innovation; Japan; prefectures; spatial distribution; patents. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L80 O34 O53 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://192.218.163.163/RePEc/pdf/kgdp200.pdf First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Trademarks as an indicator of regional innovation: evidence from Japanese prefectures (2022)
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:kgu:wpaper:200

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series from School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Toshihiro Okada ().