Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Public knowledge policies can play a key role in encouraging dynamic coordination
among the variety of heterogeneous players involved in the generation of knowledge as
a complex and collective process. The state can favor the activity of interface bodies that
have the specii c mission to increase the dissemination of scientii c knowledge and its
communication to potential users. The creation of such interface agencies can increase
the ei ciency of the workings of the knowledge governance systems. Public interface
agencies can help to identify the supply buried in the stocks of knowledge, often in the
public domain, in universities and other public research centers, and awaken demand for
its application. The role of public interface agencies is to push the academic community
towards the market place and selected segments of the business community towards the
academic one. Small i rms are not even present in the knowledge markets. The minimum
threshold of performance or research activity is often beyond the size possible for single
small companies.
Moreover the state can specialize in the direct supply of knowledge, by means of uni-
versity and public research centers, especially when it has high levels of fungibility, that
is to say, knowledge with a wide range of applications in a broad array of activities and
high levels of incremental enrichment. Public implementation of the access conditions
to such knowledge, viewed as an essential facility, is the key to dynamic ei ciency in the
generation of new knowledge.
Notes
1. I acknowledge the funding of the European Union Directorate for Research, within the context of the
Integrated Project EURODITE (Regional Trajectories to the Knowledge Economy: A Dynamic Model)
Contract No. 006187 (CIT3), in progress at the Fondazione Rosselli and BRICK at the Collegio Carlo
Alberto. I am grateful for the comments of many colleagues at the presentations of preliminary version at
the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop 'Evolutionary Economic Geography' held at
St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge, 3-5 April 2006; Conference 'Information, Intellectual
Property, and Economic Welfare' held at the Fondazione Einaudi, Torino, 15-16 May 2006; Conference
'Déterminants et impacts économiques du management des connaissances', 23 November 2006, organ-
ized by the Ecole Superieure de Commerce et Management of the Université Catholique de Lyon and
by the LEFI (Laboratoire d'Economie de la Firme et des Institutions) de l'Université Lyon Lumiere 2;
Conference 'Libertad y Crescimiento' Madrid, 29-30 March 2007; Workshop 'Regional technological
trajectories. Theoretical backgrounds and empirical observations' organized by the Max Planck Institute
Evolutionary Economics Group, Jena, Germany, 27-29 September 2007. A preliminary version circu-
lated as the No. 0709 of the Working Papers on Economics and Evolution of the Max Planck Institute of
Economics, Evolutionary Economics Group, Jena. Last but not least, I acknowledge the useful comments
of the Editors and other anonymous referees.
2. Past dependence dei nes dynamic processes characterized by high levels of sensitivity of the initial condi-
tions. Path dependence emphasizes the possibility of changing the direction of non-ergodic processes.
3. As Scitovsky (1954) notes: 'This latter type of interdependence may be called pecuniary external economies
to distinguish it from technological external economies of direct interdependence (p. 146).
4. At the i rm level it is clear that i rms have a strong incentive to implement, on the one hand, exploita-
tion strategies in order to reduce the negative ef ects of non-appropriability and hence minimize the
uncontrolled leakage of their proprietary knowledge and, on the other, exploration strategies, in order to
maximize the benei ts of knowledge spilling into the atmosphere. It is clear that both the exploitation and
exploration of knowledge require dedicated activities and relevant resources.
5. In specii c contexts the interplay can lead to logistic processes of emergence with S-shaped dynamic process
that identify critical masses. See Antonelli (2007).
Bibliography
Antonelli, C. (1995),
The Economics of Localized Technological Change and Industrial Dynamics
, Boston, MA:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Antonelli, C. (1999),
The Microdynamics of Technological Change
, London: Routledge.
