Localized Knowledge Spillovers and Patent Citations: A Distance-Based Approach

Yasusada Murata; Ryo Nakajima; Ryosuke Okamoto; Ryuichi Tamura

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00422

Localized Knowledge Spillovers and Patent Citations: A Distance-Based Approach

Yasusada Murata^1,2; Ryo Nakajima³; Ryosuke Okamoto⁴; Ryuichi Tamura⁵

¹ Nihon University · ² Advanced Research Institute · ³ Keio University · ⁴ National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies · ⁵ Hitotsubashi University

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2014

We develop a new distance-based test of localized knowledge spillovers that embeds the concept of control patents. Using microgeographic data, we identify localization distance for each technology class while allowing for spillovers across geographic units. We revisit the debate between Thompson and Fox-Kean (2005a, 2005b) and Henderson, Jaffe, and Trajtenberg (2005) on the existence of localized knowledge spillovers and find solid evidence supporting localization even when using finely grained controls. Unless biases induced by imperfect matching between citing and control patents due to unobserved heterogeneity are extremely large, our distance-based test detects localization for the majority of technology classes.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00422
Volume: 96 (5)
Pages: 967-985
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
Sources: openalex crossref