The Effect of High-Tech Clusters on the Productivity of Top Inventors

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Moretti, Enrico
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20191277
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 3328-3375
• 关键词: local economic-development; research-and-development; agglomeration economies; knowledge spillovers; STAR SCIENTISTS; INNOVATION; workers; localization; geography; location

摘要

The high-tech sector is concentrated in a small number of cities. The ten largest clusters in computer science, semiconductors, and biology account for 69 percent, 77 percent, and 59 percent of all US inventors, respectively. Using longitudinal data on 109,846 inventors, I find that geographical agglomeration results in significant productivity gains. When an inventor moves to a city with a large cluster of inventors in the same field, she experiences a sizable increase in the number and quality of patents produced. The presence of significant productivity externalities implies that the agglomeration of inventors generates large gains in the aggregate amount of innovation produced in the United States.