Technological spillovers and industrial location in Spain

While different studies have supported the existence of knowledge spillovers and shown their importance for economic growth, very few have focused on analysing their relation with the propensity for industrial activity to cluster spatially. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the geographic concentration of industrial activity in Spain, specially of innovative activity, and to link it with the existence of knowledge externalities. This analysis will be based in the Marshallian concept of external economies. As Marshall argues, there may be geographic limitations to information flows or knowledge spillovers among the firms in an industry. Firstly, this paper will present the spatial distribution of innovative activities, using input and output indicators, for the United States and Europe. Secondly, the same analysis is done in the case of in Spain. The use of Gini’s index shows that innovative activities cluster spatially more than economic activity in general. Also, the R+D intensive industries show a higher degree of concentration which could be a first indication of the important role of knowledege spillovers