Working Paper: NBER ID: w16188
Authors: Sergey Lychagin; Joris Pinkse; Margaret E. Slade; John Van Reenen
Abstract: We simultaneously assess the contributions to productivity of three sources of research and development spillovers: geographic, technology and product-market proximity. To do this, we construct a new measure of geographic proximity that is based on the distribution of a firm's inventor locations rather than its headquarters, and we report both parametric and semiparametric estimates of our geographic- distance functions. We find that: i) Geographic space matters even after conditioning on horizontal and technological spillovers; ii) Technological proximity matters; iii) Product-market proximity is less important; iv) Locations of researchers are more important than headquarters but both have explanatory power; and v) Geographic markets are very local.
Keywords: R&D Spillovers; Geographic Proximity; Technology Proximity; Product Market Proximity
JEL Codes: C23; L60; O33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Geographic space (R12) | Productivity (O49) |
| Technological proximity (O30) | Productivity (O49) |
| Product market proximity (R32) | Productivity (O49) |
| Locations of researchers (R32) | Productivity (O49) |
| Geographic markets (R12) | Productivity (O49) |