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How important are local inventive milieus: The role of birthplace, high school and university education

Ejermo, Olof LU and Hansen, Hogni Kalso (2015) In Geoforum 65. p.387-397
Abstract
Using data on the entire population in combination with data on almost all individuals in Sweden listed as inventors, we study how the probability of being listed on a patent as inventor is influenced by the density of other future inventors residing in the same region. In this process, we control for demographic and sector effects along with the educational characteristics of parents. This approach allows us to trace how location history influences individuals' inventive capacity. We focus on three types of influences: (a) future inventors in the municipality around the time of birth, (b) future inventors around the time of graduation from high school and (c) future inventors at graduation from higher education. We find suggestive... (More)
Using data on the entire population in combination with data on almost all individuals in Sweden listed as inventors, we study how the probability of being listed on a patent as inventor is influenced by the density of other future inventors residing in the same region. In this process, we control for demographic and sector effects along with the educational characteristics of parents. This approach allows us to trace how location history influences individuals' inventive capacity. We focus on three types of influences: (a) future inventors in the municipality around the time of birth, (b) future inventors around the time of graduation from high school and (c) future inventors at graduation from higher education. We find suggestive evidence that co-locating with future inventors may impact the probability of becoming an inventor. The most consistent effect is found for place of higher education; some positive effects are also evident from birthplace, whereas no consistent positive effect can be derived from individuals' high school location. Therefore, the formative influences mainly deriving from family upbringing, birth region and from local milieu effects arising from a conscious choice to attend a higher education affect the choice of becoming an inventor. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). (Less)
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author
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Inventor, Time-space, Regional unevenness, Context, Local milieu, Education
in
Geoforum
volume
65
pages
387 - 397
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • wos:000362859900043
  • scopus:84942373730
ISSN
1872-9398
DOI
10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.12.002
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d05a7b6e-7d54-4736-b418-a3fe583d734a (old id 8205953)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:12:51
date last changed
2024-01-21 07:52:25
@article{d05a7b6e-7d54-4736-b418-a3fe583d734a,
  abstract     = {{Using data on the entire population in combination with data on almost all individuals in Sweden listed as inventors, we study how the probability of being listed on a patent as inventor is influenced by the density of other future inventors residing in the same region. In this process, we control for demographic and sector effects along with the educational characteristics of parents. This approach allows us to trace how location history influences individuals' inventive capacity. We focus on three types of influences: (a) future inventors in the municipality around the time of birth, (b) future inventors around the time of graduation from high school and (c) future inventors at graduation from higher education. We find suggestive evidence that co-locating with future inventors may impact the probability of becoming an inventor. The most consistent effect is found for place of higher education; some positive effects are also evident from birthplace, whereas no consistent positive effect can be derived from individuals' high school location. Therefore, the formative influences mainly deriving from family upbringing, birth region and from local milieu effects arising from a conscious choice to attend a higher education affect the choice of becoming an inventor. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).}},
  author       = {{Ejermo, Olof and Hansen, Hogni Kalso}},
  issn         = {{1872-9398}},
  keywords     = {{Inventor; Time-space; Regional unevenness; Context; Local milieu; Education}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{387--397}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Geoforum}},
  title        = {{How important are local inventive milieus: The role of birthplace, high school and university education}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.12.002}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.12.002}},
  volume       = {{65}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}