THE GEOGRAPHIC SOURCES OF INNOVATION - TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND PRODUCT INNOVATION IN THE UNITED-STATES

The fate of regions and of nations increasingly depends upon ideas and innovations to facilitate growth. In recent years, geographers have m ade fundamental contributions to our understanding of the innovation p rocess by exploring the diffusion of innovation, the location of R&D, and the geography of high-technology industry. This paper examines the geographic sources of innovation, focusing specifically on the relati onship between product innovation and the underlying 'technological in frastructure' of particular places. This infrastructure is comprised o f agglomerations of firms in related manufacturing industries, geograp hic concentrations of industrial R&D, concentrations of university R&D , and business-service firms. Once in place, these geographic concentr ations of infrastructure enhance the capacity for innovation, as regio ns come to specialize in particular technologies and industrial sector s. Geography organizes this infrastructure by bringing together the cr ucial resources and inputs for the innovation process in particular pl aces. Using a direct measure of commercial product innovation, an empi rical model of the geography is presented. The model tests the hypothe sis that innovation is concentrated in places that possess a well-deve loped technological infrastructure. The analysis confirms this hypothe sis; innovations cluster geographically in areas that contain geograph ic concentrations of specialized resources indicative of technological infrastructure. The spatial concentration of these resources, further more, reinforces their capacity to innovate.