Working Paper: NBER ID: w29456
Authors: Brad Chattergoon; William R. Kerr
Abstract: U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial concentration of patents and identify an underlying stability in their distribution. Software patents have exploded to account for about half of patents today, and these patents are highly concentrated in tech centers. Tech centers also account for a growing share of non-software patents, but the reallocation, by contrast, is entirely from the five largest population centers in 1980. Non-software patenting is stable for most cities, with anchor tenants like universities playing important roles, suggesting the growing concentration of invention may be nearing its end. Immigrant inventors and new businesses aided in the spatial transformation.
Keywords: patents; tech clusters; spatial concentration; software patents; innovation
JEL Codes: L86; O30; O31; O32; O33; O34; R11; R12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Rise of software patents (O34) | Increasing spatial concentration of patents in the US (R12) |
| Reallocation of non-software patents (O34) | Increasing spatial concentration of patents in the US (R12) |
| Presence of anchor tenants (like universities) (R33) | Stability in the distribution of non-software patents (D39) |
| Decline in patenting activity in the largest cities (O39) | Rise in tech centers (O39) |