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Publications
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- March 2022 (Revised April 2023)
- Case
Pittsburgh: A Successful City?
Pittsburgh, PA, was once the crown jewel of American heavy industry. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city was an undisputed leader in steel production, boasting some of the largest companies and wealthiest individuals in the world. Its abundance of...
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Keywords:
Economic And Social Disparities;
Economic Development;
Local Economic Development;
Contextual Intelligence;
Contextual Knowledge;
Context;
City Growth;
City Innovation;
City Leadership;
Pittsburgh;
Local Government;
Local Stakeholders;
Business And Community;
Business And Community Relations;
Community Engagement;
Community Relations;
Cross-sector Collaboration;
Innovation;
Innovation Economy;
Innovation Clusters;
Innovation Ecosystems;
Shared Prosperity;
Equality Of Opportunity;
Equity;
Inclusion;
Business And Government;
Business ＆ Government Relations;
Business And Government Relations;
Business And Society;
Neighborhoods;
Race And Ethnicity;
Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship;
Diversity;
Ethnicity;
Race;
Household;
Income;
Economic Growth;
Economic Sectors;
Economics;
Local Range;
Urban Development;
Urban Scope;
City;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Government and Politics;
Government Administration;
Growth and Development;
History;
Leadership;
Goals and Objectives;
Philanthropy and Charitable Giving;
Society;
Civil Society or Community;
Culture;
Human Needs;
Public Opinion;
Public Sector;
Social Issues;
Poverty;
Equality and Inequality;
Manufacturing Industry;
Steel Industry;
Education Industry;
Medical Devices and Supplies Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States;
Pittsburgh;
Pennsylvania
- 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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- Article
How NFTs Create Value
By: Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers
How much could a cluster of pixels possibly be worth? More pointedly, why is it worth anything at all? The explosion of NFTs and their accompanying marketplaces have left many baffled, incredulous, and deeply skeptical. But while NFTs may be fetching eye-popping,...
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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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- 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
- 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 2018
- Article
Knowledge Integrators and the Survival of Manufacturing Clusters
By: Giulio Buciuni and Gary P. Pisano
Over the past two decades, the greater prevalence of global supply chains has had contrasting effects on Western manufacturing clusters. While some of them dwindled, others proved resilient. Contributing to the recent literature on co-located clusters and clusters'...
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- Article
Navigating Talent Hot Spots
By: William R. Kerr
Innovation clusters like San Francisco and Boston have long had an outsize impact on the global economy, and their influence keeps growing. In 2017, for instance, America’s ten largest tech hubs accounted for 58% of U.S. patents. Globally, cities such as Tokyo, Paris,...
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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
- Article
Creating Ecotourism in Costa Rica, 1970–2000
By: Geoffrey Jones and Andrew Spadafora
Between the 1970s and the 2000s, Costa Rica became established as the world’s leading ecotourism destination. This article argues that although Costa Rica benefited from biodiversity and a pleasant climate, the country’s preeminence in ecotourism requires more than a...
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- March 2017
- Teaching Plan
The Maine Food Cluster Project
By: Karen Mills
The case introduces Craig Denekas, the head of the Libra Foundation, an unusual, private foundation based in Maine, which owns three locally based food companies. Denekas has initiated a project to explore how to grow the food sector in Maine, benefiting not only...
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- December 2016 (Revised December 2018)
- Case
From Start-Up to Grown-Up Nation: The Future of the Israeli Innovation Ecosystem
By: Elie Ofek and Margot Eiran
In June 2016, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, wrestled with how to sustain Israel’s strong innovation track record and the country’s reputation as the “startup nation.” Despite the economic miracle the country had wrought since its founding, he...
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Keywords:
Israel;
Israeli Start-up Nation;
Innovation Economy;
Entrepreneurial Mindset;
Scaling-up;
Unicorns;
Innovation Clusters;
High-tech;
Innovation Management;
Multinational Corporation R＆D Centers;
Social Equality;
Two-tier Economy;
Liberalizing An Economy;
Foreign Investment;
Military Service;
Quality Of Human Capital;
Socioeconomic Gaps;
Labor Force Participation;
Government Initiatives;
Innovation and Management;
Entrepreneurship;
Venture Capital;
Business Startups;
Government and Politics;
Economy;
Equality and Inequality;
Education;
Resource Allocation;
Globalization;
Israel
- 2015
- Working Paper
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;
Cities;
Innovation;
Industry Clusters;
City;
Innovation and Invention
- Article
What to Know About Locating in a Cluster
By: Willy C. Shih and Sen Chai
As a study of two industry clusters in Denmark shows, factors that can make clusters attractive—easy people movement and knowledge spillovers—can also make it harder for individual companies to retain proprietary knowledge.
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Keywords:
Clusters;
Clustering;
Competitiveness;
Life Sciences;
Telecommunications;
Science-based;
Research And Development;
Industry Clusters;
Research;
Innovation Strategy;
Innovation and Management;
Geographic Location;
Pharmaceutical Industry;
Biotechnology Industry;
Telecommunications Industry;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Denmark
- 2015
- Chapter
Agglomeration and Innovation
By: Gerald Carlino and William R. Kerr
This chapter reviews academic research on the connections between agglomeration and innovation. We first describe the conceptual distinctions between invention and innovation. We then describe how these factors are frequently measured in the data and some resulting...
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- December 2014
- Article
Clusters, Convergence, and Economic Performance
By: Mercedes Delgado, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern
This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition in regional industry performance. On the one hand, diminishing returns to specialization in a location can result in a convergence effect: the growth rate of an industry within a region may be declining in...
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- Summer 2014
- Article
Taiwan's PC Industry, 1976–2010: The Evolution of Organizational Capabilities
By: Howard H. Yu and Willy C. Shih
The stellar growth of Taiwan's personal computer (PC) industry over the past three decades represents a paradox. Participating in the global production system, local firms in Taiwan grew in association with established firms in the West. Despite their technical...
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Keywords:
Personal Computer;
PC;
PC Industry;
Taiwan PC Industry;
Taiwan PC Manufacturers;
Innovation and Invention;
Innovation and Management;
Innovation Strategy;
Growth and Development;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Growth Management;
Industry Clusters;
Industry Growth;
Industry Structures;
Information Technology;
Technological Innovation;
Mobile Technology;
Information Technology Industry;
Taiwan
- 2014
- Working Paper
The Organizational and Geographic Drivers of Absorptive Capacity: An Empirical Analysis of Pharmaceutical R&D Laboratories
By: Francesca Lazzeri and Gary P. Pisano
Scholars and practitioners alike now recognize that a firm's capacity to assimilate and use know-how from external sources—what Cohen and Levinthal (1990) called "absorptive capacity"—plays a central role in innovation performance. In recent years, a common strategy...
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- 2014
- Chapter
Clusters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
By: Aaron Chatterji, Edward Glaeser and William R. Kerr
This chapter reviews recent academic work on the spatial concentration of entrepreneurship and innovation in the United States. We discuss rationales for the agglomeration of these activities and the economic consequences of clusters. We identify and discuss policies...
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