Knowledge Networks and Technical Invention in America's Metropolitan Areas: A Paradigm for High-Technology Economic Development

Abstract

The presence of high-technology jobs defined the regional winners in economic growth during the past decade. Countless communities around the United States tried to clone Silicon Valley to accelerate their own growth rates, but these programs consistently failed. This research demonstrates that all innovation is not tied to microchips and silicon. Seven other technologies are growing within the United States. Each of these technologies forms a “knowledge network” of innovations that resemble the Pareto distribution of national wealth, suggesting that technology behaves according to the principles of social networks. Patent data refute the folklore that small companies are more innovative than large ones. The principal distinction among innovative regions and less innovative regions is the number of large corporate research and development centers.