Is distance dying at last?
Subtitle: falling home bias in fixed effects models of patent citations
By: Rachel Griffith, Sokbae Lee, John Van Reenen.
Contributors: Lee, Sokbae.; Van Reenen, John.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13338.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13338.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 47
Subjects: Patents -- Economic aspects -- Mathematical models; Diffusion of innovations -- Economic aspects -- Mathematical models; Regional economics
Description: We examine the home bias of international knowledge spillovers as measured by the speed of patent citations (i.e. knowledge spreads slowly over international boundaries). We present the first compelling econometric evidence that the geographical localization of knowledge spillovers has fallen over time, as we would expect from the dramatic fall in communication and travel costs. Our proposed estimator controls for correlated fixed effects and censoring in duration models and we apply it to data on over two million citations between 1975 and 1999. Home bias declines substantially when we control for fixed effects: there is practically no home bias for the more modern sectors such as pharmaceuticals and information/communication technologies.
Notes: "August 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 22-25).

Also available in PDF from the NBER World Wide Web site (www.nber.org).