Geographical Distribution of Inventive Activities and Inventive Performance in Switzerland

Abstract

The theoretical developments presented in parts I and II established that innovation is crucial to the enhancement of economic growth and standards of living in the long run (i.a. Schumpeter, 1937/1989; Romer, 1990; Grossman and Helpman, 1991a, b; Aghion and Howitt, 1992; Sala-I-Martin et al., 2009). However, the intrinsic characteristics of the innovation process tend to make innovative activities concentrate in certain locations (i.a. Freeman, 1991; Jaffe et al., 1993; Feldman, 1994; Audretsch and Feldman, 1996; Malmberg et al., 1996; Asheim and Gertler, 2005; Fagerberg, 2005). Despite the globalization of the economy, the benefits of economies of agglomeration, knowledge spillovers, access to tacit knowledge, and constant interactions between the different actors involved in a region’s innovation infrastructure strengthen the role of location in the innovation process. This observation has generated a large number of studies analyzing from many different angles the spatially bounded nature of economic and innovative activities (i.a. Marshall, 1890/1916; Weber, 1909/1929; Myrdal, 1957; Perroux, 1950; Nelson and Winter, 1982; ???? et al., 1990; Krugman, 1991a, b; Storper, 1992; Nelson, 1993; Cooke and Morgan, 1994; ???? and Usai, 2000; Porter, 2000).