Assessing Regional Advantage on Technological Innovation: An Network Approach.

The increase in patenting activities in United States since 1980s shows different patterns at local level. Although various factors have been proposed to explain the regional innovative advantage, such as regional network, agglomeration economy, few studies have been pursued at the cross-sectional level. This paper examines how network structure of regions influences local advantage in innovation. I assess the influence of network position on regional innovation through investigating interlock network across region and inventor collaboration networks, controlling for regional economic and demographic characteristics. Network centrality has demonstrated positive and significant impact on innovative advantage controlling for the network structure within the region. Meanwhile, the innovative advantage is constrained by the network density within the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]