Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Miguélez, Ernest
• Moreno, Rosina

Titel

Knowledge flows and the absorptive capacity of regions

Ist Teil von

• Research policy, 2015-05, Vol.44 (4), p.833-848

Ort / Verlag

Amsterdam: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• •We study how absorptive capacity mediates the role of external knowledge flows on regional innovation.•We look particularly at the interactions between regions’ absorptive capacity and cross-regional mobility and networks.•We find large regional heterogeneity in mobility and networks returns to innovation.•Regions’ absorptive capacity critically enhances the impact of mobility and networks on innovation.•Results are robust to the inclusion of region fixed effects as well as spatial effects. This paper assesses the extent to which absorptive capacity determines knowledge flows’ impact on regional innovation. In particular, it looks at how regions with large absorptive capacity make the most of external inflows of knowledge and information brought in by means of inventor mobility and networks, and fosters local innovation. The paper uses an unbalanced panel of 274 regions over 8 years to estimate a regional knowledge production function with fixed-effects. It finds evidence that inflows of inventors are critical for wealthier regions, while it has more nuanced effects for less developed areas. It also shows that regions’ absorptive capacity critically adds a premium to tap into remote knowledge pools conveyed by mobility and networks.