Research about relation of knowledge spillover and technology innovation

When we recognized that knowledge spillovers remain ambiguous, it helps the researcher to avoid studying the specific mechanisms through which the two phenomena about `geography' and `innovation' are linked. Knowledge spillover is the observation that innovative activities are strongly concentrated at the geographical level and that firms located in certain areas are systematically more productive than firms located elsewhere. An alternative knowledge diffusion mechanism that is often invoked by the knowledge spillover-story supporters consists in the localized mobility of individual workers, particularly the skilled ones. The central point we have stressed is that the notion of knowledge spillover has been largely abused, thereby generating great conceptual confusion.