Communities of inventors and knowledge flows : transcending social and geographic distances
Résumé
A fairly large body of literature, employing primarily patent citations data, has argued that geographic distance constraints knowledge spillovers (Jaffe 1989, Verspagen & Schoenmakers, 2004, Singh & Marx 2013). This stream of work emphasises the tacit dimension of knowledge- a property that makes knowledge sticky and rather immobile. Knowledge acquisition therefore requires, the argument goes, close personal interaction. These interactions can often be informal and are thus best facilitated by physical proximity between parties.