Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcast
  • Managing the Future of Work Podcast
  • About Us
  • Book
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Podcasts
    • HBS Case
    • In Practice
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
  • Browse All
    Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation
    30 Sep 2009Working Paper Summaries

    Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

    by William R. Kerr
    In just a short period of time the spatial location of invention can shift substantially. The San Francisco Bay Area grew from 5 percent of U.S. domestic patents in 1975-1984 to over 12 percent in 1995-2004, for example, while the share for New York City declined from 12 percent to 7 percent. Smaller cities like Austin, Texas, and Boise, Idaho, seem to have become clusters of innovation overnight. Despite the prevalence of these movements, we know very little about what drives spatial adjustments in U.S. invention, the speed at which these reallocations occur, and their economic consequences. In this paper, HBS professor William R. Kerr investigates whether breakthrough inventions draw subsequent research efforts for a technology to a local area. Evidence strongly supports the conclusion that centers of breakthrough innovations experience subsequent growth in innovation relative to their peer locations. Key concepts include:
    • Breakthrough inventions spur higher subsequent growth in innovation within a local area and technology compared to peer locations that, for example, have the same overall numbers of patents and similar technologies at the time when the breakthrough occurred.
    • The underlying mobility of the workforce is quite important for the speed at which spatial adjustments occur. Immigrants, and particularly new immigration to the United States, can facilitate faster spatial reallocation.
    LinkedIn
    Email

    Author Abstract

    We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of US inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent citations. Patenting growth is significantly higher in cities and technologies where breakthrough inventions occur after 1984 relative to peer locations that do not experience breakthrough inventions. This growth differential in turn depends on the mobility of the technology's labor force, which we model through the extent that technologies depend upon immigrant scientists and engineers. Spatial adjustments are faster for technologies that depend heavily on immigrant inventors. The results qualitatively confirm the mechanism of industry migration proposed in models like Duranton (2007).

    Paper Information

    • Full Working Paper Text
    • Working Paper Publication Date: September 2009
    • HBS Working Paper Number: 10-020
    • Faculty Unit(s): Entrepreneurial Management
      Trending
        • 23 May 2023
        • Research & Ideas

        Face Value: Do Certain Physical Features Help People Get Ahead?

        • 06 Jun 2016
        • Research & Ideas

        Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

        • 25 Feb 2019
        • Research & Ideas

        How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

        • 26 Apr 2023
        • In Practice

        Is AI Coming for Your Job?

        • 16 May 2023
        • HBS Case

        How KKR Got More by Giving Ownership to the Factory Floor: ‘My Kids Are Going to College!’

    William R. Kerr
    William R. Kerr
    Dimitri V. D'Arbeloff - MBA Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration
    Unit Head, Entrepreneurial Management
    Contact
    Send an email
    → More Articles
    Find Related Articles
    • Innovation and Invention
    • Economics
    • Technology
    • North & Central America
    • United States

    Sign up for our weekly newsletter

    Interested in improving your business? Learn about fresh research and ideas from Harvard Business School faculty.
    This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
    ǁ
    Campus Map
    Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
    Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
    Soldiers Field
    Boston, MA 02163
    Email: Editor-in-Chief
    →Map & Directions
    →More Contact Information
    • Make a Gift
    • Site Map
    • Jobs
    • Harvard University
    • Trademarks
    • Policies
    • Accessibility
    • Digital Accessibility
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College