The Role of Network Topology and the Spatial Distribution and Structure of Knowledge in Regional Innovation Policy: A Calibrated Agent-Based Model Study
Authored by B Vermeulen, Andreas Pyka
Date Published: 2018
DOI: 10.1007/s10614-017-9776-3
Sponsors:
German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Flow charts
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Recently, new regional innovation policy paradigms emerged that
transcend a long-lived dispute on whether either regional
specialization, diversification, or rather related variety is most
conducive to regional innovativeness. This includes `smart
specialization' in which regions are deliberately specialized and
connected following technological relatedness, `gatekeepers' in which
there are pipelines between dense regional networks, and a `regional
mix' of knowledge that allows sustained `branching'. We develop and use
an agent-based model to study the conjecture that, to stimulate
(supra)regional innovativeness, social planners need to consider both,
in conjunction, the mix of technological knowledge in regions and the
(inter)regional innovation network topology. We use this agent-based
model to evaluate the performance of and study the internal mechanisms
of these newpolicy paradigms in a variety of scenarios. To increase the
external validity of our findings, we calibrate the knowledge graph
searched by the agents in our model to the OECD patent database. We
confirm that access to related variety is important, yet that, on top of
that, access to incidentally related knowledge is crucial to prevent
high-level lock-in and ensure long term technological progress.
Moreover, we find that networks with regional gatekeepers are
particularly innovative, because these gatekeepers form `knowledge
hubs', create short paths to potential partners, and enlarge the total
pool of knowledge. In case agents have few relationships, we find
exceptionally high performance for the gatekeeper network in combination
with regional diversification. The smart specialization network is a
solid second option, although it lacks access to incidentally related
knowledge and thus will ultimately fall behind whenever agents have
relatively few relationships. The study elaborates on specific scenarios
to reveal intricacies in the relationship between knowledge
distribution, network topology, and the structure of interrelationships
between knowledge fields.
Tags
Agent-based model
Performance
Innovation network
Specialization
Diversification
technology
Cities
Alliances
Life-cycle
Competitiveness
Patent
Tacit knowledge
Regional innovativeness
Related variety
Gatekeeper
Smart specialization
Branching
Social planner
Agglomeration externalities
Cluster evolution
Gatekeepers