Following last decade’s programmatic papers on Evolutionary Economic Geography, we report on recent empirical advances and how this empirical work can be positioned vis-à-vis other strands of research in economic geography. First, we review studies on the path dependent nature of clustering,...

Economic historians tend to explain the rise of the cooperative form in agriculture from the advantage of cooperative over private factories in reducing transaction costs with suppliers. This study provides a first test of this thesis using data on 1130 dairy factories in The Netherlands....

This study shows for eight science-based industries that the citation impact of research collaboration is higher for international collaboration than for national and regional collaboration. A further analysis of institutional affiliations shows that university-industry-government collaborations...

We present a systematic review of seven threshold models of technological transitions from physics, biology, economics and sociology. The very same phenomenon of a technological transition can be explained by very different logics, ranging from economic explanations based on price, performance...

We propose a model of technological transitions based on two different types of innovations. Branching innovations refer to technological improvements along a particular path, while recombinant innovations represent fusions of multiple paths. Recombinant innovations create “short-cuts” which...

We investigate how variety affects the innovation output of a region. Borrowing arguments from theories of recombinant innovation, we expect that related variety will enhance innovation as related technologies are more easily recombined into a new technology. However, we also expect that...

Joint PhD projects are a promising form of research collaboration, connecting universities to firms and public research organizations. Entering into such collaborations, however, requires decisions in terms of governance. This paper investigates how a university and its partners govern such...

Many studies have analysed the role of the creative class and cultural industries in fostering regional development. The focus on regional development neglects the individual differences in success among members in the creative class and among firms within cultural industries. We study firm...

Faced with ever-increasing pressure to innovate and perform, firms consider universities as a significant, external source of knowledge. There is a variety of ways through which such knowledge flow can take place, including academic publications, contract research, staff mobility and university...