Local academic knowledge spillovers and the concentration of economic activity

Agglomeration effects on the intensity of local knowledge spillovers from universities to high technology innovations are examined within the modified Griliches-Jaffe knowledge production function framework. Estimations are carried out at the level of US metropolitan areas. Concentration of high technology employment turns out to be the most important factor promoting local academic knowledge spillovers. It is found that a ?critical mass? of agglomeration needs to be reached in order to expect substantial local economic effects of academic research spending. (JEL O31, H41, O40)

From the Geography of Innovation to Development Policy Analysis: The GMR-approach

Knowledge based local economic development policies (often labeled also as 'cluster development' or policies designed to distribute Structural Funds over the EU territory within the framework of'“national development plans') are implemented with an explicit or implicit aim towards broader state, national or even supra national interests. The main issues are growth (at the supra regional level) and convergence (across regions). How different mixtures of the instruments of local development policies can help approach theses aims – or more precisely to what extent these policies may serve either of the targets or perhaps both of them? The related theoretical and empirical literature in the new economic geography, economic growth and the geography of innovation fields is extensive. However economic models drawing from this literature and constructed for the aim of evaluating actual development policy decisions in the light of the growth and convergence targets are rare. This paper serves two aims. First it explains a manner how the geography of innovation literature can contribute to develop a sub-model that can be used for assessing the static impacts of development policy interventions in the GMR-Hungary model. Second to demonstrate the power of such a model that incorporates the lessons from the geography of innovation literature policy simulation results with GMR at the regional, interregional and macro levels are provided.Innovation, development policy, regional growth

The Academic Entrepreneur: Myth or Reality for Increased Regional Growth in Europe?

Knowledge flows from universities to the regional economy can take different forms ranging from formal research collaborations to consultancy and informal personal connections. One of the knowledge communication channels drawing substantial interest of both researchers and regional policy makers is academic spin-off firm formation. According to the concept of the “academic entrepreneur” (Etzkowitz) university spin-off firm formation has grown naturally from the academic culture of the US where professors traditionally behave very much like entrepreneurs while setting up and maintaining research labs, hiring research assistants, “marketing” research results in conferences and publications or networking with colleagues and funding agencies. Spinning off a company is just a step forward from such entrepreneurial tasks of academics. Thus according to this concept academic motivations are main drivers in university spin-off firm formation in the US. Despite this challenging view the empirical literature pays relatively little attention to the particular “academic” features of university spin-offs and rarely considers the specificities of university entrepreneurship most notably the role of scientists as entrepreneurs. Empirical evidence suggests that Europe performs less successfully than the US in transferring knowledge from university labs to the regional economy via spin-off companies. One potential reason behind this difference is that institutions that determine the continental European research system hold back the emergence of academic entrepreneurs. Thus it is the main research question in our paper whether those specific “academic” drivers behind university spin-off firm formation are present at all in the continental European context. The related question is whether professional characteristics of the academics, their social capital, the norms of academia and the academic and business environment support or hinder these academic motivations? This paper is based on interviews carried out with university researchers who actively participate in firm formation in Hungary. Hungary is an excellent European case since the features of its university system are rooted in the continental (mainly German) tradition, but it also inherits some characteristics from the even more centralized socialist (soviet) tradition.University, spin-off, academic entrepreneurship, regional university technology transfer

Academic Knowledge Transfers and the Structure of International Research Networks

Az egyetemektõl az ipari innovációig áramló tudástranszfer földrajza napjaink közgazdasági szakirodalmának széles körben kutatott témájává vált. A vizsgálatok egyik meghatározó eredményeként említhetõ, hogy az egyetemek és az ipar közötti lokális tudás-áramlások hatékonyságát számos külsõ tényezõ – mint pl. az agglomeráció, a vállalkozói környezet vagy a helyi üzleti kultúra – is befolyásolja. Az egyetemek nemzetközi kutatói hálózatokba való beágyazottsága és az egyetemekrõl származó tudás szétterjedése közötti kapcsolat vizsgálata viszont igen friss fejlemény a közgazdasági szakirodalomban. A téma fontosságát egyrészt az indokolja, hogy a kutatói produktivitás és a tudományos hálózatokhoz való tartozás között szoros összefüggés fedezhetõ fel, másrészt pedig az, hogy az egyetemekhez köthetõ szabadalmak és a minõségi kutatási eredmények nem zárják ki szükségszerûen egymást. A hálózatok és a szabadalmak közötti kapcsolatok tehát ígéretes témát szolgáltatnak az elemzések számára. Tanulmányunk a nemzetközi publikációk szerzõit magában foglaló hálózatok szerkezetének (pl. koncentráció, méret, integráltság) az egyetemi szabadalmakra vonatkozó hatását vizsgálja a tudástermelési-függvény alkalmazásával a Pécsi Tudományegyetem különbözõ egységeirõl gyûjtött adatokra támaszkodva.University knowledge transfer, network analysis, knowledge production function

Production of Knowledge and Geographically Mediated Spillovers from Universities: Spatial Econometric Perspective and Evidence from Austria

The paper sheds some light on the issue of geographically mediated knowledge spillovers from university research activities to regional knowledge production in the high tech sector in Austria. Knowledge spillovers occur because knowledge created by university is typically not contained within that institution, and thereby creates value for others. The conceptual framework for analysing geographic spillovers of university research on regional knowledge production is derived from Griliches (1979). It is assumed that knowledge production in the high tech sector essentially depends on two major sources of knowledge: the university research that represents the potential pool of knowledge spillovers and R&D performed by the high tech sector itself. Knowledge is measured in terms of patents, university research and R&D in terms of expenditures. We refine the standard %0D knowledge production function by modelling research spillovers as a spatially discounted external stock of knowledge. This enables us to capture local and interlocal spillovers. Using district-level data and employing spatial econometric tools evidence is found of university research spillovers that transcend the geographic scale of the political district in Austria. It is shown that geographic boundedness of the spillovers is linked to a decay effect. Reference Griliches Z. (1979): Issues in Assessing the Contribution of Research and Development to Productivity Growth, Bell Journal of Economics 10, 92-116

Diákok környezeti attitűdjei

A tanulmány az Országos Közoktatási Intézetben lezajlott, környezeti neveléssel foglalkozó, több iskolára kiterjedő vizsgálatból a diákok környezeti attitűdjeire vonatkozó részt elemzi

Macroeconomic effects of the geography of knowledge production: EcoRET, a macroeconometric model with regionally endogenized technological change for Hungary

Mainstream economic thinking is still characterized by a predominantly a-spatial theoretical structure. Though economists are able to model the impacts of capital, labor or technology on output, employment or prices at both macro and micro levels, our methodological tools are still not sensitive to the influence of geography on the way inputs contribute to production. Empirical investigations of the relationship between agglomeration and macroeconomic growth are still relatively rare in the literature. It is also a very recent advancement that geographical structure is modeled simultaneously with other variables in macroeconomic models. This paper introduces EcoRET the macroeconometric model with regionally endogenized technological change for Hungary. The unique feature of EcoRET is that it incorporates spatial structure into a traditional macroeconometric model by a regional block of technological change. The model can be applied for policy simulations on the macroeconomic effects of changing geographical distribution of regional financial supports. JEL classification: O31, H41, O40 Keywords: endogenous growth theory, new economic geography, knowledge spillovers, total factor productivity, agglomeration economies