Collaboration Intensity and Regional Innovation Efficiency in Germany—A Conditional Efficiency Approach

Many case studies highlight a positive relationship between regions' innovation performance and the intensity of collaboration among regional organizations. However, few efforts have been made to analyze this relation with quantitative approaches. In addition to a theoretical discussion, the paper presents an empirical investigation on this issue utilizing conditional efficiency analysis and patent co-application data for the Electrics & Electronics industry in 270 German labor market regions. The results show that the relationship between regions' innovation performance and the intensities of regional as well as inter-regional collaboration take the form of an inverted-U shape. Regions with average regional and inter-regional collaboration intensities are found to outperform those characterized by extremely low, high or unbalanced collaboration behavior.