External effects of metropolitan innovation on firm survival: Non-parametric evidence from computer and electronic product manufacturing and healthcare services

Abstract

In the last two decades, geography came into prominence as an important consideration in the study of knowledge accumulation, firm performance, and economic growth. The role of space as a determinant of economic outcomes comes primarily from the non-uniform distribution of human and social capital across territories. Accumulated knowledge, specific in each region, eventually should translate into productive applications and lead to dissimilar rates of economic growth (Ibrahim et al. 2009). The literature argues that knowledge, innovativeness, and entrepreneurship (factors that in the short-run are ‘attached’ to a region) play a definite role in economic outcomes.