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Does 'Clustering' really help firms'innovative activities?

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This paper examines whether location in strong industrial clusters translates into a higher probability of innovating. A firm-level analysis of the UK and Italy is performed. Innovative activities of firms (European patent data for 1988-98) are related to regional employment, other cluster-specific and firm-specific variables. Clustering per se does not explain all of a firm's inno-vative performance. While location in a cluster densely populated by innovative firms positively af-fects the likelihood of innovating, strong disadvantages arise from the presence of non-innova-tive firms, both in own and other sectors industries. Firms' innovative persistence and the regional knowledge stock are also important.

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  • Catherine Beaudry & Stefano Breschi, 2000. "Does 'Clustering' really help firms'innovative activities?," KITeS Working Papers 111, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Jul 2000.
    • Handle: RePEc:cri:cespri:wp111
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    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Brenner & Siegfried Greif, 2006. "The Dependence of Innovativeness on the Local Firm Population—An Empirical Study of German Patents," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 21-39.
    2. Folta, Timothy B. & Cooper, Arnold C. & Baik, Yoon-suk, 2006. "Geographic cluster size and firm performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 217-242, March.
    3. Dios Palomares, R. & Martínez Paz, J.M. & Vicario Modroño, V., 2003. "Eficiencia versus innovación en explotaciones agrarias / Efficiency versus innovation in multicrop farms," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 21, pages 485-501, December.
    4. Simona Iammarino & Philip McCann, 2010. "The Relationship between Multinational Firms and Innovative Clusters," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Tomas Gabriel Bas & Martin H. Kunc, 2008. "National Systems of Innovations and Natural Resources Clusters: Evidence from Copper Mining Industry Patents," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(12), pages 1861-1879, October.
    6. Catherine Beaudry, 2001. "Entry, Growth and Patenting in Industrial Clusters: A Study of the Aerospace Industry in the UK," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 405-436.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Clusters; Innovation; Knowledge; Spillovers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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