The Geography of Innovation Commercialization in the United States During the 1990s

This paper analyzes the location and interrelationship of three measures of innovation commercialization across the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States and estimates a model of the factors explaining variations in the location of innovation commercialization. In general innovation commercialization tends to be highly geographically concentrated, suggesting the presence of substantial external economies in these functions. Beyond these scale effects, however, I find that the university science and engineering capacity and local patenting activity both help to account for intercity differences in the level of innovation commercialization activity.