No inventor is an island: social connectedness and the geography of knowledge flows in the US

Andreas Diemer and Tanner Regan

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Do informal social ties connecting inventors across distant places promote knowledge flows between them? To measure informal ties, we use a new and direct index of social connectedness of regions based on aggregate Facebook friendships. We use a well-established identification strategy that relies on matching inventor citations with citations from examiners. Moreover, we isolate the specific effect of informal connections, above and beyond formal professional ties (co-inventor networks) and geographic proximity. We identify a significant and robust effect of informal ties on patent citation. Further, we find that the effect of geographic proximity on knowledge flows is entirely explained by informal social ties and professional networks. We also show that the effect of informal social ties on knowledge flows: has become increasingly important over the last two decades, is higher for older or `forgotten' patents, is more important for new entrepreneurs or `garage inventors', and is somewhat stronger across distant technology fields.

Keywords: knowledge flows; diffusion; social connectedness; informal networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O33 R12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-net, nep-soc, nep-tid and nep-ure
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Related works:
Journal Article: No inventor is an island: Social connectedness and the geography of knowledge flows in the US (2022)
Working Paper: No inventor is an island: social connectedness and the geography of knowledge flows in the US (2022)
Working Paper: No inventor is an island: social connectedness and the geography of knowledge flows in the US (2020)
Working Paper: No inventor is an island: social connectedness and the geography of knowledge flows in the US (2020)
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