GVC/City REDI Seminar Series: Riccardo Crescenzi

Seminar title: Foreign Direct Investment and City-level Innovation: evidence from across the globe

Speaker: Riccardo Crescenzi (London School of Economics)

Abstract

Innovation is highly geographically concentrated and its spatial distribution tends to remain stable over time. However, the process of technological development still opens new windows of locational opportunity for new innovation centres to emerge around the world. What makes it possible for some cities and regions to join the exclusive ‘world innovation club’? What are the fundamental differences between innovative and non-innovative regions? While the existing literature has focused its attention on internal indigenous characteristics at the national, regional or city level more limited remains the analysis of external foreign linkages and collaborations in explaining local innovation performance. Existing evidence in this regard is largely limited to case studies on individual regions or countries. This paper looks at the regions of the entire world in order to estimate the impact of various forms of foreign linkages – including Foreign Direct Investment – on the innovation performance of the host cities and regions. This paper investigates the extent to which foreign interventions matter for building up local innovative capacity. Using a combination of patent data and regional observables, we perform panel matching at the region×technology-class level to arrive at a causal estimate of the impact of foreign intervention.

About the speaker

Riccardo Crescenzi is a Professor of Economic Geography in the Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant Holder. Research Staff at the LSE Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC).

Riccardo’s research is focused on Regional Economic Development and Growth, Innovation, Multinational Firms and the analysis and evaluation of European Union development policies. His teaching focuses on the economics of local and regional development.