Stefano Usai

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.

Technological Enclaves and Industrial Districts: An Analysis of the Regional Distribution of Innovative Activity in Europe

This paper explores the spatial distribution of innovative and productive activity across 109 regions of the European Union, thanks to an original databank on regional patents statistics. The main results worth highlighting are as follows. The technological activity in the EU appears to be highly concentrated, although concentration tends to decline over the eighties. This results from the huge differences between southern and northern Europe. As expected, there is a positive association between the regional distribution of innovative activity and labour productivity. Further, contrary to previous evidence on the United States, our data show a significant link between the specialisation in innovation and in production both at the country and at the industry level. This suggests that localised knowledge spillovers and agglomeration economies foster a local economic system towards a specialisation in both production and technology. More surprisingly there appears a negative correlation between technological concentration and aggregate productivity, that is the European regions which enjoy a more homogeneous distribution of their technological capability across different industrial sectors appear to be also characterised by a higher productivity level. This outcome may suggest the presence of positive inter-industry externalities that favour those regions which succeed in covering a broader range of technological activities.

Externalities, knowledge spillovers and the spatial distribution of innovation

The aim of the paper is to investigate the process of spatial agglomeration of innovation and production activities and to assess the extent to which the degree of specialisation or diversity externalities in the area may affect the innovative output in a particular local industry. The analysis is carried out thanks to an original databank on innovation and production activity across 85 industrial sectors and 784 Italian Local Labour Systems, which are groupings of municipalities characterised by a high degree of self-contained flows of commuting workers. According to the global and local indicators of spatial association there are clear signs of spatial correlation in the distribution of innovation activities. The econometric analysis shows that the two types of externalities – specialisation and urbanisation economies – are both effective. Moreover, we find evidence for knowledge spillovers since technological activities of a local industry influence positively innovations of the same sectors in contiguous areas.

Externalities and local economic growth in manufacturing industries

The growing interest on the economic geography issues has provided new vigour to the research efforts aiming at explaining economic phenomena without neglecting space. In particular several studies have focused on the role of spatially bounded externalities on firms agglomeration processes at the local industry level. This paper has a twofold objective. Firstly, we outline a general eclectic model of local economic growth to provide the theoretical background to guide the econometric analysis. The model includes a general taxonomy of different factors which may explain economic growth in a specific industry and location. Secondly, we assess the role of a large set of potential determinants of the process of local agglomeration of economic activity and we address the issue of spatial association of the local growth processes. We apply our model to the case of Italy making use of a very ample database on socio-economic indicators for 784 Local Labour Systems and 97 manufacturing sectors over the period 1991-96. Our econometric results show that local growth in Italy is not a homogeneous process. On the contrary, it is characterized by significant differences across macro regions with respect to the relevance of the explanatory factors. Among the most important determinants of local industry growth, it is worth mentioning the positive role of the diversity externalities. We also find robust evidence of the negative influence of specialisation externalities on labour dynamics at the local industry level. Moreover, we have assessed the effects of other determinants of local growth like - human capital, social environment and public infrastructures. The analysis of spatial dynamics, carried out for the North-East and Centre-North, shows that at the local industry level there are polarisation phenomena at work and that employment dynamics are self-contained within the boundaries of local labour systems once we have controlled for a large set of local determinants.

International patenting and national technological specialization

Abstract This paper is concerned with the comparison of national technological systems for six major industrialized countries. Our analysis is based on an original data bank on international patenting activity that allows one to avoid some distortions that usually affect patent statistics. As a result we offer some methodological guidelines in the use of international patenting as a national technological indicator. Further, the domestic and foreign technological profiles for the six countries are described in detail. We observe that foreign patenting may prove a misleading indicator because internal and external patenting are still two distinct phenomena.

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.

The Complementary Effects of Proximity Dimensions on Knowledge Spillovers

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of various proximity dimensions on the innovative capacity of 276 regions in Europe within a knowledge production function model, where R&D and human capital are included as the main internal inputs. We combine the standard geographical proximity with the technological, social and organizational ones to assess whether they are substitutes or complements in channelling knowledge spillovers. Results show that all proximities have a significant complementary role in generating an important flow of knowledge across regions, with technological closeness showing the most important effect.

Treating Patents as Relational Data: Knowledge Transfers and Spillovers across Italian Provinces

The paper applies a relational perspective to patent data in order to investigate the characteristics of innovation flows within and across 103 Italian NUTS3 regions (province). In this way it is possible to use the CRENoS database on regional patenting—built on EPO data spanning from 1978 to 2003—to investigate the scientific and technological “relations” among “invention-creating ” and “invention-adopting ” territories. In particular, patents are used as relational data connecting inventors and applicants along a dual interpretation of a “knowledge production” and a “knowledge utilization” function. In addition a gravity model is used to identify frictions and attractions of the Italian innovation system. Analytical tools, such as social network analysis, spatial econometrics and negative binomial estimation procedures, are used to map and measure the structure and the evolution of a series of innovation sub-systems, both at territorial level (i.e. province) and at the industry level (i.e. five specific industries, chosen according to the Pavitts taxonomy, Footwear, Textiles, Machinery, Personal Computers and Chemicals).

Proximity, Networks and Knowledge Production in Europe

This paper aims at investigating the role of different types of proximity on the technological activity of a region within the context of a knowledge production function where R&D expenditure and human capital are the main internal inputs. We intend to assess if, and how much, the creation of new ideas in a certain region is the result of knowledge flows coming from proximate regions. In particular, we examine in detail the concept of proximity combining the usual geographical dimension with the institutional, technological, social and organizational proximity. The analysis is implemented for an ample dataset referring to 276 regions in 29 European countries (EU27 plus Norway, Switzerland) for the last decade. Results show that human capital and R&D are clearly essential for innovative activity but with an impact which is much higher for the former factor. As for the proximity and network effects, we find that geography is important but less than technological and cognitive proximity. Social and organizational networks are also relevant although their role is modest.

Global reversal, regional revival?

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Regional Studies on 19 January 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00343404.2016.1255720.