Comparative Localization of Academic and Industrial Spillovers

This paper studies localization of academic and industrial knowledge spillovers. Using data on U.S. Research and Development laboratories, that quantify spatial aspects of learning about universities and firms as well as their locations, I find that academic spillovers are more localized than industrial spillovers. I also find that localization is increased by nearby stocks of R&D, but reduced by laboratory and firm size. These results on localized academic spillovers reflect open science and the industry-university cooperative movement, which encourage firms to work with local universities, so that localization coincides with the public goods nature of science. This situation contrasts with relations to other firms, where contractual arrangements are needed to access proprietary information, often at a considerable distance.