Browsing by Subject "Geography of innovation"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

New economic geography reloaded : localized knowledge spillovers and the geography of innovation
(2009) Christ, Julian P.
Despite the increasing and newly inspired interests in geographical economics and industry location theory, the majority of existing New Economic Geography models ignores the interdependence between spatial concentration, knowledge diffusion, invention and growth. For this reason, the paper exclusively surveys the emergence and development of New Economic Geography Growth models in the context of the existing geography of innovation literature. The first part of the paper contributes with a classification of first- and second-nature causes of agglomeration and clustering. This part will also discriminate between static and dynamic externalities. Therefore, the chapter particularly compiles the differences between urbanization and localization externalities, and MAR, Jacobian and Porter externalities. A second concern of the paper is to highlight the modeling peculiarities of New Economic Geography Growth models. Besides approaching the main differences and similarities between first- and second-generation NEG models, the paper additionally reviews and discloses complemental contributions to the geography of innovation literature in the course of time. For this purpose, the paper examines in a meta-study 61 empirical contributions, which are related to the knowledge production function, the concept of spatial dependence and knowledge spillovers. The meta-study is complemented by bibliometric research. The paper ultimately concludes that the empirical studies that are related to the concept of (localized) knowledge spillovers and spatial association have caused a fundamental upgrading of the New Economic Geography literature towards non-pecuniary externalities. Consequently, the paper shows that recently developed second-generation NEG models offer alternative backward and forward linkages, which similarly determine centripetal and centrifugal forces, circular causality and finally the geography of innovation.
Varieties of systems of innovation : a survey of their evolution in growth theory and economic geography
(2007) Christ, Julian P.
The systems of innovation (SI) approach has been established and extended during the last two decades. Although elementary goals and progress have been reached through seminal contributions by Freeman (1987), Lundvall (1992) or Nelson (1993), in designing a generic approach, displaying the dynamics of collaboration, networking and interactive learning, criticism has been raised that systems of innovation are still ?undertheorized?. The objective of this paper is to describe briefly the historical evolution of the SI concept within the academic literature and the policy sphere. This review primarily attempts to highlight some of the most important contributions that strongly assisted to the framework, by providing more consistency and a more theory-oriented perspective. Consequently, the system concept itself seems to be a kind of ?boundary object?. Within both, the academic and the policy field, different levels of conceptualization have been challenged and advanced in the course of time. These conceptualizations basically differ in their scale of analysis, taking geographical perspectives, technologies or sectoral classifications as foci for theorizing and empirical research. Despite these substantial levels of research, the SI framework is increasingly challenged, analyzed and extended in the context of globalization. As a result, regarding the openness and flexibility of the SI approach, this paper particularly tries to focus on the difficulties of contemporary research in defining functional and spatial boundaries in theory and empirical research. Agglomeration tendencies, knowledge externalities and localized learning are primarily based upon the concepts of knowledge diffusion, tacit knowledge and proximity. In spite of that, ICT and global business linkages foster inter-regional and transborder knowledge flows. Thus, knowledge diffusion is also related to international and global ?pipelines? that could support, strengthen and reinforce localized learning.