Events

Prof. Wolfgang Keller
Professor of Economics
University of Colorado-Boulder

A major concern in advanced countries is that the physical movement of firms’ production plants to remote locations lowers their rate of innovation. However, evidence on synergy eQects from colocating production and innovation activities to date is limited. Geo-coding the universe of US plants in US Census data between 1977 and 2020, this paper breaks new ground in describing change in the geography of innovation in the United States. Consistent with positive synergy eQect from co-location, we find that firms with both production and innovation plants patent more, and they do so especially when these plants are in close geographic proximity.