Rosina Moreno

Spatial Spillovers and Innovation Activity in European Regions

This paper explores the spatial distribution of innovative activity and the role of technological spillovers in the process of knowledge creation and diffusion across 175 regions of seventeen countries in Europe (the fifteen members of the pre-2004 European Union plus Switzerland and Norway). The analysis is based on a databank set up by CRENoS on regional patenting at the European Patent Office, spanning 1978–2001 and classified by ISIC sectors. The first step is an exploratory spatial data analysis of the dissemination of innovative activity in Europe. The goal of the rest of the paper is to analyse to what extent externalities that cross regional boundaries can explain the spatial association process detected in the distribution of innovative activity in the European regions. The framework given by the knowledge-production function together with the use of spatial econometrics techniques allow us to look for insights on the mechanics of knowledge interdependences across regions, which are shown to exist. Empirical results point to the relevance of internal regional factors (R&D expenditure and agglomeration economies). Moreover, the production of knowledge appears also to be affected by spatial spillovers due to innovative activity (both patenting and R&D) performed in other regions. Additional results show that spillovers are mostly constrained by national borders within less than 250 km, and that technological similarity between regions also matters.

Decomposing differences in total factor productivity across firm size

This paper investigates the extent to which the gap in total factor productivity between small and large firms is due to differences in the endowment of factors determining productivity and to the returns associated with these factors. We place particular emphasis on the contribution of differences in the propensity to innovate and in the use of skilled labor across firms of different size. Empirical evidence from a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms corroborates that both differences in endowments and returns to innovation and skilled labor significantly contribute to the productivity gap between small and large firms. In addition, it is observed that the contribution of innovation to this gap is caused only by differences in quantity, while differences in returns have no effect; in the case of human capital, however, most of the effect can be attributed to increasing differences in returns between small and large firms.

Returns to Local and Transport Infrastructure under Regional Spillovers

This article pays special attention to the spatial dimension of public capital in regional economic growth. We assume that the effect of infrastructure on productivity depends on the type of public infrastructure in question: that is, local infrastructures enhance economic activity in the area where they are located, whereas transport and communication infrastructure may produce both benefits in the area where they are located and positive or negative spillovers to other regions. We also obtain conclusions on whether the link between growth and public capital depends on the amount of existing public capital stocks. Results for the Spanish provinces during a long time period suggest that the returns to local infrastructure are much greater than the returns to transportation, although in both cases, we observe strong decreasing returns to their accumulation. Finally, negative spillovers across regions in transport capital investments are obtained.

Public infrastructure and the performance of manufacturing industries: short- and long-run effects

We present a theoretical framework for determining the short- and long-run effects of infrastructure. While the short-run effects have been the focus of most previous studies, here we derive long-run elasticities by taking into account the adjustment of quasi-fixed inputs to their optimum levels. By considering the impact of infrastructure on private investment decisions, we observe how, apart from the direct effect on costs in the short-run, infrastructure exerts an indirect source of influence in the long-run through their effect on private capital. The model is applied to manufacturing industries in the Spanish regions.

Growth and Externalities Across Economies: An Empirical Analysis Using Spatial Econometrics

Recent theoretical models of economic growth have emphasised the role of external effects on the accumulation of factors of production. Although most of the literature has considered the externalities across firms within a region, in this paper we go a step further and consider the possibility that these externalities cross the barriers of regional economies. We assess the role of these external effects in explaining growth and economic convergence. We present a simple growth model, which includes externalities across economies, developing a methodology for testing their existence and estimating their strength. In our view, spatial econometrics is naturally suited to an empirical consideration of these externalities. We obtain evidence on the presence of significant externalities both across Spanish and European regions.

Innovation Clusters in the European Regions

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to the analysis of the process of spatial agglomeration of innovative activities by investigating directly its determinants. Our main purpose is to identify the extent to which the degree of specialization or diversity in a region may affect the innovative activities in a particular local industry. Other local factors are also tested such as home market effect and other agglomeration phenomena. In other words, we pursue to identify to which extent the organization of innovation is either concentrated or alternatively consists of diverse but complementary innovative activities, and how this composition influences innovative output. Moreover the use of spatial econometric techniques should allow the nature other than the spatial scope of the diffusion of technological spillovers to be analysed. The analysis is based on a databank set up by CRENoS on regional patenting at the European Patent Office classified by ISIC sectors (23 manufacturing sectors), which considers 175 regions of 17 countries in Europe. The possibility to have a rich database, furthermore, allows replicating the analysis for two periods, 1994–1996 and 1999–2001, in order to check the robustness of some results along the time dimension.

A relational approach to the geography of innovation: a typology of regions

The aim of this study was to devise a method for computing a composite indicator that measures the regional degree of exposure to external knowledge sources. On the basis of this indicator, we propose a typology of regions according to their potential capacity to access extra-local items of knowledge, which might help them to recombine complementary elements of such an asset to produce a higher number of new ideas. Building on various research streams that have been relatively independent to date, we summarize a non-exhaustive instrumental list of recent studies that motivates our approach and the construction of our complex indicator, which can be used to appraise the extent to which each region is in an optimal position to access external innovative resources.

Do Labour Mobility and Networks Foster Geographical Knowledge Diffusion? The Case of European Regions

The goal of this paper is twofold: first, we aim to assess the role played by inventors’ cross-regional mobility and networks of collaboration in fostering knowledge diffusion across regions and subsequent innovation. Second, we intend to evaluate the feasibility of using mobility and networks information to build cross-regional interaction matrices to be used within the spatial econometrics toolbox. To do so, we depart from a knowledge production function where regional innovation intensity is a function not only of the own regional innovation inputs but also external accessible R&D gained through interregional interactions. Differently from much of the previous literature, cross-section gravity models of mobility and networks are estimated to use the fitted values to build our ‘spatial’ weights matrices, which characterize the intensity of knowledge interactions across a panel of 269 regions covering most European countries over 6 years.

Fiscal Policy and Interest Rates: The Role of Financial and Economic Integration

It is commonly believed that a fiscal expansion raises interest rates. However, these crowding out effects of deficits have been found to be small or non-existent. One explanation is that financial integration offsets interest rate differentials on globalised bond markets. This paper measures the degree of integration of government bond markets, using spatial modelling techniques to take this spillover on financial markets into account. Our main finding is that the crowding out effect on domestic interest rates is significant, but is reduced by spillover across borders. This spillover is important in major crises or in periods of coordinated policy actions. This result is generally robust to various measures of cross-country linkages. We find spillover to be much stronger among EU countries.

On the effectiveness of private and public capital

This study assesses the effectiveness of private and public capital investments in the performance of manufactures within the framework of the duality theory. The response of costs of production and input utilization to changes in the stocks of private and public capital is measured by the appropriate elasticities obtained from a cost function. Instead of considering private capital either as a variable or fixed input on a priori grounds, its nature is checked, that is, the study discriminates between a long- and a short-run situation. The empirical exercise is made for the manufacturing industries in the Spanish regions.