Search

Scholars of entrepreneurship and innovation are eager to understand the role of demographics: characterising the representation of women and minorities in publishing, patenting, and startups. Yet progress is hindered by the lack of demographic data in many relevant databases, or the unknown reliability of data fields that are available. Usually knowing little beyond the person's name, researchers often rely on name algorithms to assign gender and/or race. High error rates can occur from such algorithms unless coupled with image recognition. Providers of public goods should prioritise funding the creation of demographic libraries for scientists, entrepreneurs, and inventors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographic localization of knowledge spillovers is a central tenet in multiple streams of research. However, prior work has typically examined this phenomenon considering only one geographic unit-country, state, or metropolitan area-at a time and has rarely accounted for spatial distance. We disentangle these multiple effects by using a regression framework employing choice-based sampling to estimate the likelihood of citation between random patents. We find both country and state borders to have independent effects on knowledge diffusion beyond what just geographic proximity in the form of metropolitan collocation or shorter within-region distances can explain. An identification methodology comparing inventor-added and examiner-added citation patterns points to an even stronger role of political borders. The puzzling state border effect remains robust on average across analyses, though it is found to have waned with time. The country effect has, in contrast, not only remained robust but even strengthened over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]