Previous empirical research has established that science appears to stimulate the widespread diffusion of knowledge. The exact mechanism through which science catalyzes knowledge flow, however, remains somewhat ambiguous. This paper investigates whether the observed knowledge diffusion...

Scholars from a variety of backgrounds – economists, sociologists, strategists, and students of technology management – have sought a better understanding of why some knowledge disperses widely while other knowledge does not. In this quest, some researchers have focused on the...

Like all politics, all entrepreneurship is local. Individuals launch firms and, if successful, expand their enterprises to other locations. But new firms must start somewhere, even if their businesses are conducted largely or exclusively on the Internet. Likewise, policymakers at local and state...

The diffusion of knowledge plays an important role in both the creation and distribution of wealth. Attempting to construct a competitive advantage, managers of firms often seek to spread valuable knowledge widely across subunits of the organization, while simultaneously preventing its diffusion...

Although received wisdom suggests that scientific research increases the rate of technological advance, little research considers why and how this acceleration occurs. By treating invention as a process of recombining interdependent technological components, we gain traction on this issue....

Scientists, social scientists and politicians frequently credit basic science with stimulating technological innovation, and with it economic growth. To support this idea, researchers have shown that patents based on university research receive more citations - a measure of patent importance -...

Social relationships channel information, influence, and access to scarce resources. As a consequence, social networks - the patterns of these relationships across the members of a community - influence who comes up with important innovations, whether and how rapidly those innovations get...