Patent Citations and the Geography of Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from Inventor- and Examiner-added Citations

A-Tier
Journal: Review of Economics and Statistics
Year: 2006
Volume: 88
Issue: 2
Pages: 383-388

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

I report new evidence for localized knowledge spillovers identified by within-patent variations in the geographic matching rates of citations added by inventors and citations added by examiners. Evaluated at the mean citation lag, inventor citations are 20% more likely than examiner citations to match the country of origin of their citing patent, whereas U.S. inventor citations are 25% more likely to match the state or metropolitan area of their citing patent. The localization of intranational knowledge spillovers declines with the passage of time, but international borders present a persistent barrier to spillovers. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:tpr:restat:v:88:y:2006:i:2:p:383-388
Journal Field
General
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-29