This paper investigates the effect of related and unrelated variety on regional growth in West Germany. In particular, we analyze the role of regional absorptive capacity and new business formation for these effects. We find that West German regions benefit from both types of varieties. The...

This paper investigates the relevance of government purchasing behavior for innovation-based economic growth. We construct a parsimonious Schumpeterian growth model in which demand from the public sphere can effectively alter the economy's rate of technological change. We incorporate results of...

The paper targets the relationship between growth of cooperation and later growth of innovation at the regional level. Patent data for German regions and eleven subsequent years is used to identify collaborative activity as well as the innovative output in each region. The results confirm to...

There is a research gap with respect to understanding the role of entrepreneurial culture and tradition for actual start-up behaviour. We combine historical self-employment data (entrepreneurial tradition) with a psychological measure for entrepreneurial attitudes (entrepreneurial culture). The...

We investigate the impact of actors' positions within regional innovator networks on their innovative performance. The networks of four selected regions are based on information on patent applicants and inventors. Count data regressions show positive effects on innovation of both the total...

The aim of this paper is to test how geographical and technological proximity relate to a particular industry’s innovative output. Two mechanisms are therefore tested, i.e. agglomeration economies and the regional exploitation of technological proximity. A new dataset is applied, which...

We investigate the lead-lag relationship between growth of patent applications, growth of R&D, and growth of total sectoral employment for 270 German labour market regions over the period 1999-2005. Our unique panel dataset includes information on four two-digit industries, namely Chemistry,...

We analyze the emergence and spatial evolution of the German laser systems industry. Regional knowledge in the related field of laser sources, as well as the presence of universities with physics or engineering departments, is conducive to the emergence of laser systems suppliers. The regional...