|
on Economics of Strategic Management |
|
Issue of 2026–08–31
thirteen papers chosen by João José de Matos Ferreira, Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Giroud, Xavier; Liu, Ernest; Mueller, Holger |
| Abstract: | The vast majority of U.S. inventors work for firms that also have inventors and plants in other tech clusters. Using merged USPTO–U.S. Census Bureau plant-level data, we show that larger tech clusters not only make local inventors more productive but also raise the productivity of inventors and plants in other clusters, which are connected to the focal cluster through their parent firms' networks of innovating plants. Cross-cluster innovation spillovers do not depend on the physical distance between clusters, and plants cite disproportionately more patents from other firms in connected clusters, across large physical distances. To rationalize these findings, and to inform policy, we develop a tractable model of spatial innovation that features both within- and cross-cluster innovation spillovers. Based on our model, we derive a sufficient statistic for the wedge between the social and private returns to innovation in a given location. Taking the model to the data, we rank all U.S. tech clusters according to this wedge. While larger tech clusters exhibit a greater social-private innovation wedge, this is not because of local knowledge spillovers, but because they are well-connected to other clusters through firms' networks of innovating plants. In counterfactual exercises, we show that an increase in the interconnectedness of U.S. tech clusters raises the social-private innovation wedge in (almost) all locations, but especially in tech clusters that are large and well-connected to other clusters. |
| Keywords: | Innovation |
| JEL: | O31 R30 G30 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19206 |
| By: | D’Alessandro, Francesco; Santarelli, Enrico; Vivarelli, Marco |
| Abstract: | This study examines how regional technological relatedness and local AI knowledge influence regional innovative activity, as measured by patenting activity. Using a novel three-way longitudinal dataset (670 four-digit CPC classes × 302 NUTS-2 regions × nine four-year periods, 1986–2021) and leveraging a deep learning-based identification of AI patents, we show that two broad mechanisms operate in parallel. First, in accordance with the extant literature, technologies that are cognitively close to a region’s existing patent portfolio enjoy higher patenting activity, confirming that relatedness remains a strong and persistent predictor of innovative output. Second, local AI endowments are positively associated with patenting across technological fields, even after conditioning on relatedness, indicating that AI plays an enabling and cross-cutting role in a given regional innovation system. Moreover, the interaction between relatedness and AI turns out to be negative and statistically significant, implying that AI attenuates the extent to which local innovative efforts depend on the technology’s proximity to the regional portfolio. In sum, AI appears to enhance overall local innovative activity while reducing its reliance on pre-existing regional knowledge structures. |
| Keywords: | Artificial intelligence, AI, regional innovation, relatedness, Technological change |
| JEL: | O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2026–08–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2026012 |
| By: | Adi Weidenfeld; Tom Broekel; Nick Clifton |
| Abstract: | The Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) framework explains regional innovation performance primarily through structural conditions and external knowledge flows. While this perspective has generated influential typologies and policy models, it offers limited insight into how RISs emerge and transform from within. This paper advances a dynamic perspective that conceptualises RIS development as a continuum from fragmented interaction to systemic integration. We argue that generative network mechanisms and systemic dimensions co-evolve recursively, enabling or constraining the formation of integrated RISs. By shifting attention from static structures to self-reinforcing dynamics, the framework provides a foundation for understanding RIS formation, transformation, and reversibility, and suggests a more adaptive, mechanism-oriented approach to policy. |
| Keywords: | regional knowledge networks, regional innovation systems, network evolution, evolutionary economic geography, institutions |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2614 |
| By: | Dieter F. Kogler; Keungoui Kim |
| Abstract: | Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) has become a central perspective within contemporary Economic Geography by explaining how regions, cities, industries, firms, technologies, and institutions evolve over historical time. This chapter introduces EEG’s intellectual foundations in evolutionary economics, Schumpeterian ideas of innovation and creative destruction, and geographical debates on uneven development, path dependence, and regional transformation. It reviews the field’s core conceptual contributions around history, novelty, complexity, emergence, and adaptability, and shows how these ideas have informed empirical research on related variety, regional branching, technological knowledge spaces, networks, resilience, path development, institutions, and policy. The chapter argues that EEG is best understood not as a closed paradigm, but as an evolving and plural research programme. Its future relevance depends on explaining not only how inherited capabilities shape regional trajectories, but also how capabilities, relatedness, and path dependence are produced, activated, selected, contested, and transformed. In doing so, EEG offers a powerful framework for understanding how economic landscapes inherit the past, generate novelty, and confront uncertain spatial, technological, social, and ecological futures. |
| Keywords: | Evolutionary Economic Geography; Regional Diversification; Path Dependence; Knowledge Spaces; Uneven Development |
| JEL: | R11 O33 O18 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2619 |
| By: | Jantos, Louisa; Dekker, Thekla; Bizer, Kilian |
| Abstract: | Institutions shape the conditions under which entrepreneurship and innovation unfold, yet how their degree of openness mediates sustainability-oriented development trajectories remains systematically underexplored. Drawing on 98 expert interviews across four high-performing European innovation regions, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Zürich, we develop and empirically ground a multi-dimensional framework of institutional openness as a dynamic regional capacity. Our findings reveal that institutional density is a necessary but insufficient condition for sustainability-oriented regional development: what matters equally is institutional permeability-the table to which regional configurations remain open to external actors, knowledge, and alternative development trajectories. Helsinki's highly integrative configuration stands in marked contrast to Zürich's more fragmented one, with Copenhagen and Stockholm occupying distinct intermediate positions. The interaction between formal and informal institutional dimensions, and the underappreciated role of intermediary organizations, critically determines whether regions can redirect entrepreneurship and innovation toward sustainability goals. We derive implications for place-based innovation policy. |
| Abstract: | Institutionen prägen die Bedingungen, unter denen Unternehmertum und Innovation entstehen, doch wie ihr Grad an Offenheit nachhaltigkeitsorientierte Entwicklungspfade beeinflusst, ist bislang systematisch untererforscht. Auf der Grundlage von 98 Expert*inneninterviews in vier leistungsstarken europäischen Innovationsregionen - Helsinki, Kopenhagen, Stockholm und Zürich - entwickeln und verankern wir empirisch einen mehrdimensionalen Rahmen institutioneller Offenheit als dynamische regionale Kapazität. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass institutionelle Dichte eine notwendige, aber nicht hinreichende Bedingung für nachhaltigkeitsorientierte Regionalentwicklung ist. Ebenso entscheidend ist institutionelle Permeabilität, das Ausmaß, in dem regionale Konfigurationen gegenüber externen Akteur*innen, Wissen und alternativen Entwicklungspfaden offen bleiben. Helsinkis hochintegratives Institutionengefüge steht in deutlichem Kontrast zu Zürichs stärker fragmentierter Konfiguration, während Kopenhagen und Stockholm jeweils eigenständige Zwischenpositionen einnehmen. Das Zusammenspiel formaler und informaler institutioneller Dimensionen sowie die unterschätzte Rolle von Intermediärsorganisationen bestimmen maßgeblich, ob Regionen Unternehmertum und Innovation auf Nachhaltigkeitsziele ausrichten können. Wir leiten daraus Implikationen für eine ortsbezogene Innovationspolitik ab. |
| Keywords: | Institutional Openness, Institutional Theory, Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Regional Development |
| JEL: | O31 O32 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifhwps:342483 |
| By: | Zheng Tian; Luyi Han; Timothy Wojan; Stephan J. Goetz |
| Abstract: | Place-based policy is premised on the idea that productive investments that address endowment deficiencies may release latent comparative advantages, stimulating growth while reducing regional disparities. Extending place-based policy to the domain of innovation is conceptually challenging given conventional wisdom that settlement size is the principal determinant of agglomeration economies that fuels innovation. However, growing concern that more places are being left behind by the innovation economy has prompted greater interest in ways to expand the geography of innovation. Using confidential firm-level data from the 2018 Annual Business Survey, this study examines differences in self-reported innovation activity between firms in rural and urban counties to identify possible endowment deficiencies. We do this by employing the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method to quantify the urban-rural innovation gap to better understand the relative contributions of firm characteristics, owner characteristics, and county-level factors. |
| Keywords: | Place-based innovation policy, Rural–urban innovation gap, Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, Annual Business Survey |
| JEL: | O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-48 |
| By: | Grega Smrkolj (Newcastle University); Florian Wagener (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We study a continuous-time duopoly model of process innovation with R&D spillovers, comparing noncooperative R&D with cooperative research regimes. We extend the standard constant-spillover framework by allowing knowledge transmission to decay with technological distance and to favor followers over leaders in asymmetric specifications. In a global Markov-perfect model, firms may invest before production is viable, enter or exit production as costs evolve, and converge to no-market, monopoly, or duopoly outcomes. State-dependent spillovers change R&D incentives, catch-up dynamics, long-run market structure, and the welfare effects of research cooperation. In the computed equilibria, more follower-favoring spillovers weaken the leader's private incentive to invest but accelerate catch-up, shorten monopoly phases, and make eventual duopoly more likely. When spillovers are weak, cooperation mainly softens dynamic rivalry; when information sharing is substantial, cooperation expands market formation, lowers long-run costs, and can raise both consumer and total surplus, especially under the research-joint-venture regime. The value of R&D cooperation depends on the direction and persistence of knowledge flows, not only on their average intensity. |
| JEL: | C73 D43 O31 |
| Date: | 2026–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20260041 |
| By: | Nathan Lane |
| Abstract: | Major economies are rearming, and rearmament is itself industrial policy. I ask whether defense promotion—especially innovation policy—can drive industrial development beyond the defense sector. I synthesize evidence on supply-side instruments (including R&D tax credits and grants) and demand-side procurement, tracing each from its effects on firms' own R&D investment through innovation and productivity outcomes to spillovers beyond the recipient firm. The evidence is conditionally positive: public support more often crowds private effort in than out, but returns concentrate among particular firms, technologies, and designs, and weaken as one moves from investment to outputs and from civilian to defense settings. Defense spillovers, in particular, cannot be assumed. I draw five lessons for designing defense industrial policy that delivers broader economic returns, with the greatest weight on Europe's rearmament. The developmental promise of defense promotion is real but conditional: whether rearmament also strengthens the wider industrial economy turns on how it is designed. |
| Keywords: | defense economics, industrial policy, innovation policy, R&D, procurement, EU, defence |
| Date: | 2026–08–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2208 |
| By: | Matteo Marsili |
| Abstract: | This note discusses zero-sum games with open-ended innovation, whereby each player may introduce new strategies. The innovation process is modelled as a draw of new strategies form a distribution. It is argued that, under generic conditions, this setting can lead to an everlasting innovation arm race, because the introduction of new technologies of one player increases the marginal utility for technological innovation of the opponent. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.25677 |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Tourism start-ups are helping drive innovation in response to digitalisation, sustainability imperatives and changing traveller expectations. This paper examines how incubators and accelerators support tourism entrepreneurship across European and OECD countries. It highlights a growing and diverse support landscape, but also identifies challenges related to fragmented support, limited scale-up opportunities, and gaps in evidence on programme impacts. The paper outlines policy considerations to strengthen tourism innovation ecosystems, including better co-ordination, stronger industry linkages, more continuous support pathways, and improved monitoring and evaluation. By shedding light emerging practices, it contributes to a better understanding of how incubation and acceleration initiatives can support a more innovative, competitive and sustainable tourism sector. |
| Keywords: | accelerators, digital formation, entrepreneurship, incubators, tourism, travel and tourism start-ups |
| JEL: | Z38 L26 Z3 |
| Date: | 2026–08–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:cfeaab:2026/01-en |
| By: | Timo Boppart; Peter J. Klenow; Reiko Laski; Huiyu Li |
| Abstract: | Which firms drive aggregate productivity growth? We document that firms with high price-earnings ratios tend to see increases in their subsequent earnings relative to sales, which we interpret as rents from ideas (innovation). We construct an endogenous growth model with shocks to firm innovation step-sizes and R&D efficiency and calibrate it to match patterns in the data. The model implies that growth would be much lower, even with the same innovative effort, if firms had the same step sizes. The model can be used to infer expected growth contributions of individual firms (such as members of the Magnificent Seven). We find that the share of growth coming from smaller listed firms substantially exceeds their sales share, whereas the largest listed firms account for less than their sales share. |
| JEL: | L11 O31 O41 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35594 |
| By: | Zoltan Elekes; Sandor Juhasz; Gergely Magyar; Balazs Lengyel; Gergo Toth |
| Abstract: | Regional industry clusters enhance firm performance, yet the geography of firm-to-firm transactions underlying this advantage remains unclear. Using nationwide supplier-buyer and labour-flow networks constructed from Hungarian administrative data, we examine how the spatial reach of cluster and non-cluster firms’ supplier, customer, and labour connections relates to firm performance. We find that greater geographic reach in both networks is associated with better firm performance. Among cluster firms, better-performing firms reach more distant customers while drawing from more geographically proximate labour markets. Our findings reveal that the spatial structure of inter-firm networks is a key source of the cluster premium. |
| Keywords: | supply chains, production networks, labour flows, regional clusters, firm performance |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2613 |
| By: | Carolin Nast; Tom Broekel |
| Abstract: | This study examines researchers’ diversification into sustainability research, distinguishing between initial entry and subsequent engagement intensity. While the existing literature emphasises individual-level drivers, we argue that such diversification is also shaped by organisational and relational contexts. Using bibliometric data from the University of Stavanger, Norway, we show that network distance to sustainability-active colleagues is a key predictor: researchers who are structurally closer to engaged peers are more likely to enter the field and deepen their involvement. By contrast, department- and faculty-level sustainability activities show weaker, more context-dependent associations, with department-level effects disappearing once network variables are included. The findings highlight the importance of intra-organisational knowledge networks for sustainability-oriented research transitions. |
| Keywords: | research diversification, sustainability research, organizational context, academic peer influence |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2618 |