Geographies of Patent Innovation Among Florida’s Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

The creation and diffusion of innovations has a long and illustrious history among geographers. Innovations are important measures of the capacity of countries, regions, and firms to create, compete, and surf the waves of change that typify capitalist economies; thus, they are intimately linked to gains in productivity, human capital, and public policy. The capacity to innovate is often held to differentiate high and low points in the spatial division of labor, distinguishing dynamic cores from stagnant peripheries, regional and national leaders from laggards (Grossman and Helpman 1991; Acs 2000).