In this paper, I present novel empirical evidence in support of the idea that FDI firms can act as an important driver of regional growth, by acting as a source of new knowledge and technologies to local suppliers in a host economy. For the analysis, I use unique firm level data that I obtained...

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...

Based on a standard idea-based model of endogenous growth we test the hypothesis that regional innovative activity is path-dependent, and investigate the geographical scope of knowledge spillovers. Using data for West-German regions, two alternative indicators of the stock of knowledge are...