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- March 2022
- Article
Winner Takes All? Tech Clusters, Population Centers, and the Spatial Transformation of U.S. Invention
By: Brad Chattergoon and William R. Kerr
U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Winner Takes All? Tech Clusters, Population Centers, and the Spatial Transformation of U.S. Invention
By: Brad Chattergoon and William R. Kerr
U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial...
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- 2021
- Article
Cluster Presence and Economic Performance: A New Look Based on European Data
By: Christian H.M. Ketels and Sergiy Protsiv
This paper takes a fresh empirical look at how cluster presence matters for economic performance. It analyses a new data set developed for the European Cluster Observatory to assess the impact of clusters on industry-level wages and regional prosperity. It is found...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Digital Labor Market Inequality and the Decline of IT Exceptionalism
By: Ruiqing Cao and Shane Greenstein
Several decades of expansion in digital communications, web commerce, and online distribution have altered regional IT labor market returns in the United States. IT occupations experienced similar wage growth as STEM occupations involving IT-related work activities,...
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- Summer 2020
- Article
Tech Clusters
By: William R. Kerr and Frederic Robert-Nicoud
Tech clusters like Silicon Valley play a central role for modern innovation, business competitiveness, and economic performance. This paper reviews what constitutes a tech cluster, how they function internally, and the degree to which policy makers can purposefully...
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- 2020
- Chapter
Immigrant Networking and Collaboration: Survey Evidence from CIC
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one's own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Tech Clusters
By: William R. Kerr and Frederic Robert-Nicoud
Tech clusters like Silicon Valley play a central role for modern innovation, business competitiveness, and economic performance. This paper reviews what constitutes a tech cluster, how they function internally, and the degree to which policy makers can purposefully...
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- September 2019
- Article
Bankruptcy Spillovers
By: Shai Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Xavier Giroud and Benjamin Iverson
How do different bankruptcy approaches affect the local economy? Using U.S. Census microdata, we explore the spillover effects of reorganization and liquidation on geographically proximate firms. We exploit the random assignment of bankruptcy judges as a source of...
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- 2019
- Chapter
Spatial Agglomeration and Superstar Firms: Firm-level Patterns from Europe and U.S.
By: Laura Alfaro, Maggie X. Chen and Harald Fadinger
We characterize the agglomeration patterns of industries and plants in Europe, distinguishing Eurozone countries and the United States. Using a micro-level index, we quantify the degree of geographic concentration in industrial activities and explore how firm...
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- April 2019 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
Exporting Livability: Investing in New Urban Centers
By: John D. Macomber and Essie Alamsyah
Can Singapore urban design, policy continuity, and system of laws be exported outside of Singapore to accelerate the effective development of new urban agglomerations? Nina Yang, CEO of Sustainable Urban Development at Ascendas-Singbridge, a large real estate company...
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- 2019
- Chapter
Location Fundamentals, Agglomeration Economies, and the Geography of Multinational Firms
By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen
Multinationals exhibit distinct agglomeration patterns, which have transformed the global landscape of industrial production (Alfaro and Chen, 2014). Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for...
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- 2019
- Working Paper
Immigrant Networking and Collaboration: Survey Evidence from CIC
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one’s own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge...
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- 2018
- Working Paper
Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century
By: Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas and Stefanie Stantcheva
This paper studies the effect of corporate and personal taxes on innovation in the United States over the 20th century. We use three new datasets: a panel of the universe of inventors who patent since 1920; a dataset of the employment, location, and patents of firms...
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- 2018
- Chapter
The Logic of Agglomeration
By: Gilles Duranton and William R. Kerr
This review discusses frontier topics in economic geography as they relate to firms and agglomeration economies. We focus on areas where empirical research is scarce but possible. We first outline a conceptual framework for city formation that allows us to contemplate...
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Keywords:
Agglomeration;
Clusters;
Innovation;
Cities;
Industry Clusters;
City;
Innovation and Invention
- 2017
- Article
High-Skilled Migration and Agglomeration
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr, Çağlar Özden and Christopher Parsons
This paper reviews recent research regarding high-skilled migration. We adopt a data-driven perspective, bringing together and describing several ongoing research streams that range from the construction of global migration databases, to the legal codification of...
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- 2016
- Chapter
The Origins of High-Tech Venture Investing in America
By: Tom Nicholas
The United States has developed an unparalleled environment for the provision of high-tech investment finance. Today it is reflected in the strength of agglomeration economies in Silicon Valley, but historically its origins lay in the East Coast. Notably, immediate...
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- November 2016
- Article
Spatial Organization of Firms and Location Choices Through the Value Chain
By: Juan Alcacer and Mercedes Delgado
We explore the impact of geographically bounded, intra-firm linkages (internal agglomerations) and geographically bounded, inter-firm linkages (external agglomerations) on firms' location strategies. Using data from the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Business Database,...
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- Article
National Image as a Competitive Disadvantage: The Case of the New Zealand Organic Food Industry
By: Geoffrey Jones and Simon Mowatt
This article examines why organic agriculture and food consumption developed more strongly in some countries than others between the 1970s and the 2000s. The focus is the limited growth of the New Zealand organic sector, which contrasts with countries such as Denmark,...
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- May 2016 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
Olivia Lum: Wanting to Save the World
By: Geoffrey Jones and Essie Alamsyah
This case considers the entrepreneurial career of Olivia Lum, who founded the Singaporean water company Hyflux in 1989. An orphan born in Malaysia, Lum provides a rare case of an entrepreneurial success in a country whose economic success has primarily rested on...
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Keywords:
Industrial Organization;
Chinitz;
Agglomeration;
Clusters;
Cities;
Mine;
Environmental Management;
Operations Management;
Sustainable Operations;
Environmental Regulation;
Entrepreneurship;
Globalization;
History;
Operations;
Management;
Environmental Sustainability;
Green Technology Industry;
Utilities Industry;
China;
Singapore
- Article
Invention and Agglomeration in the Bay Area: Not Just ICT
By: Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb and Shane Greenstein
We document that the Bay Area rose from 4% of all successful US patent applications in 1976 to 16% in 2008. This is partly driven by the increase in the prevalence of information and communication technology; however, even for patents unrelated to information and...
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