Regional Knowledge Production in Nanomaterials: A Spatial Filtering Approach

Christoph Grimpe () and Roberto Patuelli ()
Additional contact information
Christoph Grimpe: Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, Germany; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; University of Zurich, Switzerland

Working Paper series from Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis

Abstract: Nanomaterials are seen as a key technology for the 21st Century, and much is expected of them in terms of innovation and economic growth. They could open the way to many radically new applications, which would form the basis of innovative products. As nanomaterials are still in their infancy, universities, public research institutes and private businesses seem to play a vital role in the innovation process. Existing literature points to the importance of knowledge spillovers between these actors and suggests that the opportunities for these depend on proximity, with increasing distance being detrimental to the extent that spillovers can be realised. Due to the technological complexity, however, proximity could also be less important as relevant nanomaterials research is globally dispersed. Hence in this paper, we analyse the effects of co-location of R&D activities on nanomaterial patenting. Based on European Patent Office data at the German district level (NUTS-3), we estimate two negative binomial models in a knowledge production function framework and include a spatial filtering approach to adjust for spatial autocorrelation. Our results indicate that there is a significant positive effect of both public and private R&D on the production of nanomaterial patents. Moreover, we find a positive interaction between them which hints at the importance of their co-location for realising the full potential of an emerging technology like nanomaterials.

Keywords: nanomaterials; patents; co-location; spatial autocorrelation; spatial filtering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 L60 O32 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-01, Revised 2009-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in The Annals of Regional Science, 46(3):519-541, 2011

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.rcea.org/RePEc/pdf/wp29_08.pdf Revised version, April 2009 (application/pdf)
http://www.rcea.org/RePEc/pdf/wp29_08_(R_code_&_data).zip R code & data (no dependent variable)

Related works:
Journal Article: Regional knowledge production in nanomaterials: a spatial filtering approach (2011)
Working Paper: Knowledge Production in Nanomaterials: An Application of Spatial Filtering to Regional Systems of Innovation (2008)
Working Paper: Knowledge Production in Nanomaterials: An Application of Spatial Filtering to Regional Systems of Innovation (2008)
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:rim:rimwps:29_08

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper series from Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Marco Savioli ().