This paper addresses the performance of creative firms from the perspective of complex spatial systems. Based on an extensive high-dimensional database on both the attributes of individual creative firms in the Netherlands and a series of detailed regional facilitating and driving factors...

We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control...

Innovation and technological change are central to the quest for regional development. In the globally-connected knowledge-driven economy, the relevance of agglomeration forces that rely on proximity continues to increase, paradoxically despite declining real costs of information, communication...

We analyze the impact of obsolescence of economic inventions by incorporating maintenance costsin the endogenous growth model of expanding product varieties. This contrasts with the existingliterature, which ignores maintenance costs and uses the model of quality improvements todescribe...

The importance of knowledge spillovers for achieving innovation and economic growth is widely recognized. It is not straightforward which type of spillovers is most effective: intra-sectoral spillovers or inter-sectoral spillovers. We investigate this controversy using a model of regional...

Finding proper policy instruments to promote productivity growth features prominently on the Lisbon agenda and is central in many national as well as European policy debates. In view of the increased mobility of high-skilled workers in Europe, ongoing globalization and increased interregional...

We extend Lazear's theory of skills variety and entrepreneurship in three directions. First, we provide a theoretical framework linking new business creation with an entrepreneur's skill variety. Second, in this model we allow for both generalists and specialists to possess skill variety. Third,...

The fraction of R&D active firms decreased in Switzerland but increased in the Netherlands from 2000-2016. This paper examines reasons for this divergence and its impact on productivity growth. Our micro-data reveal R&D concentration among high-productivity firms in Switzerland. Innovation...