The Geography of Small Firm Innovation

The Geography of Small Firm Innovation offers a unique look at the importance of geographic proximity to the innovative activity of the high-tech small firms. IT explores the concentration of innovation across metropolitan areas in the United States during the 1990's by introducing a novel measure of small-firm innovation based on the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research Program, the largest federal R&D program for small business. The empirical evidence indicates the differing effects of technological infrastructure on both the likelihood of innovation occurring in a metropolitan area, which has implications for public policy.