Endogenous growth theory has long recognized innovation as one of the key drivers of growth. Understanding what factors encourage or discourage innovative activities and how, in turn, these affect our communities is therefore crucial to inspire policies that promote inclusive growth. This dissertation tries to broaden our comprehension of the innovative process and its consequences. The first chapter shows that knowledge intensive activities cause an increase in income segregation within U.S. cities and proposes a framework that can be used to study how to mitigate this effect. In the second chapter, we explore how population density is related to the kind of innovation produced in a certain area. More densely populated places tend to promote the creation of unconventional ideas. Finally, the third chapter describes a newly developed data set of geographically referenced historical patents that will allow researchers to get a long run perspective and better understanding of the innovation process as a whole.

Last modified

• 04/03/2019

Creator

• Enrico Berkes

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2Q48F

Subject

• Economics

Keyword

• Economics of Innovation
• Economic Geography
• Urban Economics
• Patents
• Macroeconomics

Date created

• 2018-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright