AGGLOMERATION AND THE LOCATIONOF INNOVATIVE ACTIVITY

Abstract

A paradox has been the emergence of the importance of local proximity and geographic clusters precisely at a time when globalization seems to dominate economic activity. The purpose of this paper is to resolve this paradox by explaining why and how geography matters for innovative activity and ultimately for the interna tional comparative advantage. Globalization and the telecommunications revolution have triggered a shift in the comparative advantage of the leading developed countries towards an increased importance of innovative activity. This shift in comparative advantage has increased the value of knowledge-based economic activity. Since knowledge is generated and transmitted more efficiently via local proximity, economic activity based on new knowledge has a high propensity to cluster within a geographic region. This has triggered a fundamental shift in public policy towards business, away from policies constraining the freedom affirms to contract and towards a new set of enabling policies, implemented at the regional and local levels.

 

역설은 세계화가 경제 활동을 지배하는 것처럼 보이는 시기에 정확하게 지역 근접성과 지리적 클러스터의 중요성의 출현이었다. 이 논문의 목적은 지리가 혁신적인 활동과 궁극적으로 국제적인 비교우위를 위해 왜 그리고 어떻게 중요한지를 설명함으로써 이러한 역설을 해결하는 것이다. 세계화와 통신 혁명은 선진국들의 비교우위가 혁신활동의 중요성을 높이는 방향으로 이동하는 계기가 되었다. 이러한 비교우위의 변화는 지식기반 경제활동의 가치를 증가시켰다. 지식은 지역적 근접성을 통해 보다 효율적으로 생성되고 전달되기 때문에 새로운 지식에 기반한 경제활동은 지리적 지역 내에서 군집화되는 경향이 높다. 이것은 계약에 대한 자유 확인을 제한하는 정책에서 벗어나 지역 및 지역 차원에서 시행되는 일련의 새로운 활성화 정책으로 기업을 향한 공공 정책의 근본적인 변화를 촉발했다.

 

VII. PENETRATING THE BLACK BOX OF GEOGRAPHIC SPACE

While a new literature has emerged identifying the important role that knowledge spillovers within a given geographic location play in stimulating innovative tive activity, there is little consensus as to how and why this occurs. The contribution of the new wave of studies described in the previous section was simply to shift the unit of observation away from firms to a geographic region. But does it make a difference how economic activity is organized within the black box of geographic space? Political scientists and sociologists have long argued that the differences in the culture of a region may contribute to differences in innovative performance across regions, even holding knowledge inputs such as R&D and human capital constant. For example Saxenian (1990) argues that a culture of greater interdependence and exchange among individuals i the Silicon Valley region has contributed to a superior innovative performance than is found around Boston's Route 128, where firms and individuals tend to be more isolated and less interdependent.

In studying the networks located in California's Silicon Valley, Saxenian (1990, pp. 96-7) emphsizes that it is the communication between individuals that facilitates the transmission of knowledge across agents, firms, and even industries, and not just a high endowment of human capital and knowledge in the region: 

It is not simply the concentration of skilled labour, suppliers and information that distinguish the region. A variety of regional institutions—including Stanford University, several trade associations and local business organizations, and a myriad of specialized consulting, market research, public relations and venture capital firms—provide technical, financial, and networking services which the region's enterprises often cannot afford individually. These networks defy sectoral barriers: individuals move easily from semiconductor to disk drive firms or from computer to network makers. They move from established firms to start-ups (or vice versa) and even to market research or consulting firms, and from consulting firms back into start-ps. And they continue to meet at trade shows, industry conferences, and the scores of seminars, talks, and social activities organized by local business organizations and trade associations. In these forums, relationships are easily formed and maintained, technical and market information is exchanged, business contacts are established, and new enterprises are conceived This decentralized and fluid environment also promotes the diffusion of intangible technological capabilities and understandings.

Such observations suggest a limitation inherent to the general knowledge production function approach described in the previous section. While economists tend to avoid attributing differences in economic performance to cultural differences, there has been a series of theoretical arguments suggesting that differences in the underlying structure between regions may account for differences in rates of growth and technological change. In fact, a heated debate has emerged in the literature about the manner in which the underlying economic structure within a geographic unit of observation might shape economic performance. This debate revolves around two key structural elements-the degree of diversity versus specialization and the degree of monopoly versus local competition.

One view, which Glaeser et al. (1992) attribute to the Marshall-Arrow-Romer externality, suggests that an increased concentration of a particular industry within a specific geographic region facilitates knowledge spillovers across firms. This model formalizes the insight that the concentration of an industry within a city promotes knowledge spillovers among firms and therefore facilitates innovative activity. To the degree that individuals in the population are identical and engaged in identical types of activities, the costs of communication and transactions are minimized. Lower costs of transaction in communicationresultin ahigher probability of knowledge spilling over across individuals within the population. An important assumption of the model is that knowledge externalities with respect to firms exist, but only for firms within the same industry. Thus, the relevant unit of observation is extended from the firm to the region in the tradition of the Marshall Arrow-Romer model, but the spillovers are limited to occur solely within the relevant industry.

By contrast, restricting knowledge externalities to occur only within the same industry may ignore an important source of new economic knowledge—inter-industry knowledge spillovers. After all, Griliches (1992, p. 29) has defined knowledge spillovers as, 'working on similar things and hence benefiting much from each other's research'. Jacobs (1969) argues that the most important sources of knowledge spillovers are external to the industry in which  the firm operates and that cities are the source of considerable innovation because the divers ity of these knowledge sources is greatest in cities. According to Jacobs, it is the exchange of complementary knowledge across diverse firms and economic agents which yields a greater return on new economic knowledge. She develops a theory that emphasizes that the variety of industries within a geographic region promotes knowledge externalities and ultimately innovative activity and economic growth. 

The extent of regional specialization versus regional diversity in promoting knowledge spillovers is not the only dimension over which there has been a theoretical debate. A second controversy involves the degree of competition prevalent in the region, or the extent of local monopoly. The Marshall-Arrow Romer model predicts that local monopoly is superior to local competition because it maximizes the ability of firms to appropriate the economic value accruing from their investments in new knowledge. By contrast, Jacobs (1969) and Porter (1990) argue the opposite—that competition is more conducive to knowledge externalities than is local monopoly.10 It should be emphasized that by local competition Jacobs does not mean competition within product markets, as has traditionally been envisioned within the industrial organization literature. Rather, Jacobs is referring to the competition for the new ideas embodied in economic agents. Not only does an increased number of firms provide greater competition for new ideas, but, in addition, greater competition across firms facilitates the entry of a new firm specializing in some particular new product niche. This is because the necessary complementary inputs and services are likely to be available from small specialist niche firms but not necessarily from large, vertically integrated producers.

The first important test of the specialization versus diversity debate measured economic performance in terms of employment growth. Glaeser et al. (1992) employ a data set on the growth of large industries in 170 cities between 1956 and 1987 in order to identify the relative importance of the degree of regional specialization, diversity, and local competition in influencing industry growth rates. The authors find evidence that contradicts the Marshall-Arrow-Romer model, but is consistent with the theories of Jacobs. However, their study provided no direct evidence as to whether diversity is more important than specialization in generating innovative activity.

Feldman and Audretsch (forthcoming) identify the extent to which the organization of economic activity is either concentrated, or alternatively consists of diverse but complementary economic activities, and how the underlying structure of economic activity influences innovative output. They link the innovative output of product categories within a specific city to the extent to which the economic activity of that city is concentrated in that industry, or conversely, diversified in terms of complementary in dustries sharing a common science base. Their results indicate that diversity across complementary economic activities sharing a common science base is more conducive to innovation than is specialization. In addition, their results indicate that the degree of local competition for new ideas within a city is more conducive to innovative activity than is local monopoly. Perhaps the most important conclusion from these two studies, however, is that more than simply an endowment of knowledge inputs is required to generate innovative activity. The underlying economic and institutional structure matters, as do the microeconomic linkages across agents and firms.

 

주어진 지리적 위치 내의 지식 유출이 혁신적인 활동을 자극하는 데 중요한 역할을 하는 것을 식별하는 새로운 문헌이 등장했지만, 이것이 어떻게 그리고 왜 발생하는지에 대한 합의는 거의 없다. 이전 섹션에서 설명한 새로운 연구 물결의 기여는 단순히 관찰 단위를 기업에서 지리적 지역으로 이동시키는 것이었다. 하지만 경제 활동이 지리적 공간의 블랙박스 안에서 어떻게 구성되는지가 차이를 만들까요? 정치학자들과 사회학자들은 오래 전부터 지역 문화의 차이가 지역 간 혁신 성과의 차이에 기여할 수 있으며, 심지어 연구개발과 인적 자본과 같은 지식 입력을 일정하게 유지할 수 있다고 주장해 왔다. 예를 들어 Saxenian(1990)은 실리콘 밸리 지역의 개인 간 상호의존성과 교류가 더 큰 문화가 기업과 개인이 더 고립되고 덜 상호의존적인 경향이 있는 보스턴의 128번 도로 주변에서 발견되는 것보다 더 우수한 혁신 성과에 기여했다고 주장한다.

캘리포니아의 실리콘 밸리에 위치한 네트워크를 연구하면서, Saxenian(1990, 페이지 96-7)은 단지 그 지역의 높은 인적 자본과 지식의 기부가 아니라 에이전트, 회사, 심지어 산업 전반에 걸쳐 지식의 전달을 용이하게 하는 것은 개인 간의 의사소통이라고 강조한다: 

지역을 구분하는 것은 단순히 숙련된 노동력, 공급자 및 정보의 집중만이 아니다. 스탠퍼드 대학교, 여러 무역 협회 및 지역 비즈니스 조직, 수많은 전문 컨설팅, 시장 조사, 홍보 및 벤처 캐피털 회사를 포함한 다양한 지역 기관이 지역 기업이 개별적으로 감당할 수 없는 기술, 금융 및 네트워킹 서비스를 제공합니다. 이러한 네트워크는 부문별 장벽을 뛰어넘습니다. 개인은 반도체에서 디스크 드라이브 회사로 또는 컴퓨터에서 네트워크 제조업체로 쉽게 이동합니다. 그들은 기성 기업에서 스타트업(또는 그 반대)으로, 심지어 시장 조사나 컨설팅 회사로, 컨설팅 회사에서 다시 스타트업으로 이동한다. 그리고 그들은 계속해서 무역 박람회, 산업 회의, 그리고 지역 경제 단체와 무역 협회에 의해 조직된 세미나, 회담, 사회 활동의 수십 가지에서 만난다. 이러한 포럼에서는 관계가 쉽게 형성되고 유지되며, 기술 및 시장 정보가 교환되고, 비즈니스 연락처가 설정되며, 새로운 기업이 구상됩니다. 이러한 분산되고 유동적인 환경은 무형의 기술 역량과 이해의 확산도 촉진합니다.

이러한 관찰은 앞 절에서 설명한 일반적인 지식 생산 함수 접근법에 내재된 한계를 시사한다. 경제학자들은 경제적 성과의 차이를 문화적 차이로 돌리는 것을 피하는 경향이 있지만, 지역 간의 기본 구조의 차이가 성장률과 기술 변화의 차이를 설명할 수 있다는 일련의 이론적 주장이 제기되어 왔다. 실제로 문헌에서는 지리적 관측 단위 내의 기본 경제 구조가 경제 성과를 어떻게 형성할 수 있는지에 대한 열띤 논쟁이 나타났다. 이 토론은 두 가지 핵심 구조 요소, 즉 다양성 대 전문성의 정도와 독점 대 지역 경쟁의 정도를 중심으로 진행된다.

Glaeser et al.(1992)이 Marshall-Arrow-Romer 외부성에 귀속시킨 한 가지 견해는 특정 지리적 지역 내에서 특정 산업의 집중도가 증가하면 기업 간의 지식 유출이 촉진된다는 것을 시사한다. 이 모델은 도시 내 산업의 집중이 기업 간의 지식 유출을 촉진하여 혁신 활동을 촉진한다는 통찰력을 공식화한다. 모집단의 개인이 동일하고 동일한 유형의 활동에 참여하는 정도까지 통신 및 거래 비용이 최소화됩니다. 의사소통에서 거래 비용이 낮으면 인구 내 개인에 걸쳐 지식이 유출될 확률이 높아진다. 이 모델의 중요한 가정은 기업에 관한 지식 외부성이 존재하지만 동일한 산업 내의 기업에 대해서만 존재한다는 것이다. 따라서 마샬 애로우-로머 모델의 전통에 따라 관련 관측 단위가 기업에서 지역으로 확장되지만, 파급 효과는 관련 산업 내에서만 발생하도록 제한된다.

대조적으로, 지식 외부성을 동일 산업 내에서만 발생하도록 제한하는 것은 새로운 경제 지식의 중요한 원천인 산업 간 지식 파급 효과를 무시할 수 있다. 결국, Griches(1992, 페이지 29)는 지식 유출을 '유사한 것들에 대한 연구를 통해 서로의 연구로부터 많은 이익을 얻는다'라고 정의했다. 제이콥스(Jacobs, 1969)는 지식 유출의 가장 중요한 원천은 기업이 운영하는 산업 외부에 있으며, 이러한 지식 원천의 다양성이 도시에서 가장 크기 때문에 도시는 상당한 혁신의 원천이라고 주장한다. 제이콥스에 따르면, 새로운 경제 지식에 대한 더 큰 수익을 창출하는 것은 다양한 기업과 경제 주체 간의 상호 보완적인 지식의 교환이다. 그녀는 지리적 지역 내의 다양한 산업이 지식 외부성을 촉진하고 궁극적으로 혁신적인 활동과 경제 성장을 촉진한다는 것을 강조하는 이론을 개발한다. 

지식 파급 효과를 촉진하는 데 있어 지역 전문화 대 지역 다양성의 범위는 이론적 논쟁이 있었던 유일한 차원이 아니다. 두 번째 논란은 그 지역에 만연한 경쟁의 정도 또는 지역 독점의 정도와 관련이 있다. 마셜 애로우 로머 모델은 새로운 지식에 대한 투자에서 발생하는 경제적 가치를 기업이 전용할 수 있는 능력을 극대화하기 때문에 지역 독점이 지역 경쟁보다 우월하다고 예측한다. 이와는 대조적으로 Jacobs(1969)와 Porter(1990)는 경쟁이 지역 독점보다 지식 외부성에 더 도움이 된다고 주장한다.10 전통적으로 산업 조직 문헌에서 구상되었던 것처럼 지역 경쟁이 제품 시장 내의 경쟁을 의미하지 않는다는 점을 강조해야 한다. 오히려 제이콥스는 경제 주체에 구체화된 새로운 아이디어를 위한 경쟁을 언급하고 있다. 기업의 수가 증가하면 새로운 아이디어에 대한 더 큰 경쟁이 제공될 뿐만 아니라, 기업 간의 더 큰 경쟁은 특정한 신제품 틈새시장을 전문으로 하는 새로운 기업의 진입을 촉진한다. 이는 필요한 보완적 투입과 서비스가 소규모 전문 틈새기업에서 이용 가능할 가능성이 높지만 반드시 대규모 수직적으로 통합된 생산자로부터는 이용 가능하지는 않기 때문이다.

전문화 대 다양성 논쟁의 첫 번째 중요한 시험은 고용 증가 측면에서 경제 성과를 측정했다. Glaeser et al.(1992)은 산업 성장률에 영향을 미치는 지역 전문화, 다양성 및 지역 경쟁 정도의 상대적 중요성을 확인하기 위해 1956년과 1987년 사이에 170개 도시의 대규모 산업 성장에 관한 데이터 세트를 사용한다. 저자들은 마셜-애로우-로머 모델과 모순되는 증거를 찾지만 제이콥스의 이론과 일치한다. 그러나 그들의 연구는 다양성이 혁신 활동을 창출하는 데 전문화보다 더 중요한지에 대한 직접적인 증거를 제공하지 않았다.

Feldman과 Audretsch(향후)는 경제활동의 조직이 어느 정도 집중되어 있는지, 또는 다양하지만 상호보완적인 경제활동으로 구성되어 있는지, 그리고 경제활동의 근본적인 구조가 혁신적인 생산에 어떻게 영향을 미치는지 파악한다. 그들은 특정 도시 내에서 제품 범주의 혁신적인 산출물을 해당 도시의 경제 활동이 해당 산업에 집중되는 정도, 또는 반대로 공통의 과학 기반을 공유하는 보완적 산업 측면에서 다양화되는 정도로 연결한다. 그들의 결과는 공통의 과학 기반을 공유하는 상호 보완적인 경제 활동 간의 다양성이 전문화보다 혁신에 더 도움이 된다는 것을 나타낸다. 또한, 그들의 결과는 도시 내에서 새로운 아이디어를 위한 지역 경쟁의 정도가 지역 독점보다 혁신 활동에 더 도움이 된다는 것을 나타낸다. 그러나 이 두 연구에서 가장 중요한 결론은 혁신적인 활동을 창출하기 위해서는 단순한 지식 입력 이상의 기부가 필요하다는 것이다. 에이전트와 기업 간의 미시경제적 연결과 마찬가지로 근본적인 경제 및 제도적 구조가 중요하다.

 

Conclusions

Globalization combined with the telecommunica tions revolution has drastically reduced the cost of transporting not just material goods but also infor mation across geographic space. High wages are increasingly incompatible with information-based economic activity, which can be easily transferred to a lower cost location. By contrast, the creation of new ideas based on tacit knowledge cannot easily be transferred across distance. Thus, the compara tive advantage of the high-cost countries of North American and Western Europe is increasingly based on knowledge-driven innovative activity. The spillover of knowledge from the firm or university creating that knowledge to a third-party firm is essential to innovative activity. Such knowledge spillovers tend to be spatially restricted. Thus, an irony of globalization is that even as the relevant geographic market for most goods and services becomes increasingly global, the increased importance of innovative activity in the leading developed countries has triggered a resurgence in the importance of local regions as a key source of comparative advantage.

As the comparative advantage in Western Europe and North America has become increasingly based on new knowledge, public policy towards business has responded in two fundamental ways. The first has been to shift the policy focus away from the traditional triad of policy instruments essentially constraining the freedom of firms to contract-regulation, competition policy or antitrust in the USA, and public ownership of business. The policy approach of constraint was sensible as long as the major issue was how to restrain footloose multinational corporations in possession of considerable market power. This is reflected by the waves of deregulation and privatization along with the decreased emphasis of competition policy throughout the OECD. Instead, a new policy approach emerges which focuses on enabling the creation and commercialization of knowledge. Examples of such policies include encouraging R&D, venture capital and new-firm start-ups.

The second fundamental shift involves the locus of such enabling policies, which are increasingly at the state, regional, or even local level. The downsizing of federal agencies charged with the regulation of business in the United States and Great Britain has been interpreted by many scholars as the eclipse of government intervention. But to interpret deregulation, privatization, and the increased irrelevance of competition policies as the end of government intervention in business ignores an important shift in the locus and target of public policy. The last decade has seen the emergence of a broad spectrum of enabling policy initiatives that fall outside the jurisdiction of the traditional regulatory agencies. Sternberg(1996) documents how the success of a number of different high-technology clusters spanning a number of developed countries is the direct result of enabling policies, such as the provision of venture capital or research support. For example, the Advanced Research Program in Texas has provided support for basic research and the strengthening of the infrastructure of the University of Texas, which has played a central role in developing a high technology cluster around Austin (Feller, 1997). The Thomas Edison Centers in Ohio, the Advanced Technology Centers in New Jersey, and the Centers for Advanced Technology at Case Western Reserve University, Rutgers University, and the University of Rochester have supported generic, precompetitive research. This support has generally provided diversified technology development in volving a mix of activities encompassing a broad spectrum of industrial collaborators.

 

Such enabling policies, that are typically implemented at the local or regional level, are part of a silent policy revolution currently under way. The increased importance of innovative regional clusters as an engine of economic growth has led policy makers to abandon the policy cry frequently heard two decades ago, 'Should we break up, regulate, or simply take over General Motors, IBM and US Steel?' for a very different contemporary version, 'How can we grow the next Silicon Valley?

 

통신 혁명과 결합된 세계화는 물질적 상품뿐만 아니라 지리적 공간을 가로질러 정보를 운송하는 비용을 크게 감소시켰다. 높은 임금은 더 낮은 비용의 위치로 쉽게 이전될 수 있는 정보 기반 경제 활동과 점점 더 양립할 수 없다. 반대로 암묵적 지식에 기초한 새로운 아이디어의 창조는 거리를 가로질러 쉽게 전달될 수 없다. 따라서 북미와 서유럽의 고비용 국가들의 비교우위는 점점 더 지식주도형 혁신활동에 기반을 두고 있다. 기업이나 대학에서 지식을 창출하는 지식이 제3자 기업으로 파급되는 것은 혁신 활동에 필수적이다. 이러한 지식 유출은 공간적으로 제한되는 경향이 있다. 따라서 세계화의 아이러니는 대부분의 상품과 서비스에 대한 관련 지리적 시장이 점점 더 세계화됨에도 불구하고 선진국에서 혁신 활동의 중요성이 증가함에 따라 비교우위의 핵심 원천으로서 지역의 중요성이 다시 부각되고 있다는 것이다.

서유럽과 북미의 비교우위가 점점 더 새로운 지식에 기초하게 됨에 따라, 기업에 대한 공공정책은 두 가지 근본적인 방식으로 대응했다. 첫 번째는 기업의 자유를 본질적으로 제약하는 전통적인 3중 정책 수단에서 계약 규제, 미국의 경쟁 정책 또는 반독점, 기업의 공공 소유권으로 정책 초점을 전환하는 것이었다. 규제의 정책적 접근은 상당한 시장 지배력을 가진 느슨한 다국적 기업들을 어떻게 억제할 것인가가 주요 쟁점인 한 합리적이었다. 이는 경제협력개발기구(OECD) 전반에 걸쳐 경쟁정책의 비중이 줄어드는 것과 함께 규제완화와 민영화의 물결이 반영된 것이다. 대신 지식의 창조와 상업화를 가능하게 하는 데 초점을 맞춘 새로운 정책 접근법이 등장한다. 그러한 정책의 예로는 연구개발 장려, 벤처 캐피털, 신생 기업 창업 등이 있다.

두 번째 근본적인 변화는 점점 더 주, 지역 또는 심지어 지방 수준에서 그러한 가능한 정책의 중심을 포함한다. 미국과 영국에서 사업 규제를 담당하는 연방 기관의 축소는 많은 학자들에 의해 정부 개입의 일식으로 해석되어 왔다. 그러나 규제 완화, 민영화, 그리고 경쟁 정책의 증가된 무관성을 정부의 기업 개입의 끝으로 해석하는 것은 공공 정책의 중심과 대상의 중요한 변화를 무시한다. 지난 10년 동안 전통적인 규제 기관의 관할권 밖에 있는 광범위한 정책 이니셔티브를 가능하게 하는 스펙트럼이 출현했다. Sternberg(1996)는 다수의 선진국에 걸쳐 있는 다수의 다양한 첨단 기술 클러스터의 성공이 벤처 자본 또는 연구 지원과 같은 정책을 가능하게 하는 직접적인 결과인 방법을 문서화한다. 예를 들어, 텍사스의 고급 연구 프로그램은 오스틴을 중심으로 첨단 기술 클러스터를 개발하는 데 중심적인 역할을 해온 텍사스 대학의 기초 연구와 인프라 강화를 지원해 왔다(Feller, 1997). 오하이오의 토마스 에디슨 센터, 뉴저지의 첨단 기술 센터, 케이스 웨스턴 리저브 대학, 럿거스 대학, 로체스터 대학의 첨단 기술 센터는 일반적이고 경쟁력 있는 연구를 지원했다. 이러한 지원은 일반적으로 광범위한 산업 협력자를 포함하는 다양한 활동을 포함하는 다양한 기술 개발을 제공했다.

일반적으로 지역 또는 지역 수준에서 구현되는 이러한 활성화 정책은 현재 진행 중인 조용한 정책 혁명의 일부입니다. 경제 성장의 엔진으로서 혁신적인 지역 클러스터의 중요성이 높아짐에 따라 정책 입안자들은 20년 전에 자주 들었던 '제너럴 모터스, IBM, US 스틸을 해체하거나 규제해야 할까요, 아니면 단순히 인수해야 할까요?'라는 매우 다른 현대판 '다음 실리콘 밸리를 어떻게 성장시킬 수 있을까요?