This chapter reviews academic research on the connections between agglomeration and innovation. We first describe the conceptual distinctions between invention and innovation. We then describe how these factors are frequently measured in the data and some resulting empirical regularities....

Draft chapter for the forthcoming Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Vols. 5A and 5B This paper reviews academic research on the connections between agglomeration and innovation. The authors first describe the conceptual distinctions between invention and innovation. They then discuss how...

Jerry Carlino points out that the fortunes of local economies usually depend on a confluence of national, sectoral, and local shocks. That, in turn, raises the question: Does one type of shock systematically buffet local economies more than another? The answer has important implications for both...

This paper has been superseded by WP 15-03. The authors study the location and productivity of more than 1,000 research and development (R&D) labs located in the Northeast corridor of the U.S. Using a variety of spatial econometric techniques, they find that these labs are substantially more...

Metropolitan areas in the U.S. contain almost 80 percent of the nation’s population and nearly 85 percent of its jobs. This high degree of spatial concentration of people and jobs leads to congestion costs and higher housing costs. To offset these costs, workers must receive higher wages, and...