It has long been argued that geographic co-location supports knowledge spillovers. More recently, this argument has been challenged by showing that knowledge spillovers mainly flow through social networks, which may or may not be localized at various geographic scales. We further scrutinize the...

Various theories have been advanced for why employees leave incumbent firms to found firms in the same industry, which we call spinoffs. We review the accumulating evidence about spinoffs in various high-tech industries, highlighting the central role often played by disagreements. Because...