Canais de difusão do conhecimento: efeito da mobilidade e da colaboração inter-regional de inventores sobre a inovação regional

Abstract

This thesis had as main objective to evaluate the role of co-invention and of inventors mobility among the Brazilian regions in the diffusion of knowledge and regional innovation. For this purpose, the regional knowledge production function approach was used to incorporate the regional interactions promoted by these two phenomena. Taking advantage of the instruments of Spatial Econometrics, these interactions were represented in the production function by means of matrices of weights constructed to capture the bilateral relations of co-operation and interregional mobility. Secondary objectives were to evaluate the effect of physical, cognitive and institutional distances on co-invention and interregional inventors mobility, and to construct weight matrices that reflect the regional interaction resulting from collaboration to innovate and the mobility of inventors between regions. These matrices were estimated year by year using gravitational models for co-invention and for mobility and the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator with fixed effects of origin and destination. The knowledge production function was estimated by means of a dynamic panel using system gmm. The results showed that space exerts a relevant influence on the decision of the inventors to migrate to other regions and collaborate to innovate. The greater the geographical distance, the less mobility and inter-regional co-operation. These findings corroborate the theory that knowledge flows are located in space because the mobility and cooperation among the agents of innovation are localized in space as well. The technological proximity between the source and destination regions contributes to the inventor’s decision to migrate. On the other hand, this proximity does not affect inter-regional co-operation relationships. The results of the knowledge production function showed that the mobility of inventors among the Brazilian regions does not promote the diffusion of knowledge and regional innovation. This may be due to the importance of the technological proximity between origin and destination in the choice of the inventor's migration. This proximity can generate overlapping of knowledge, preventing external knowledge from benefiting regional innovation. Another reason is the low regional absorption capacity, revealed by the non-statistical significance of industrial Research and Development (R&D). On the other hand, regional co-operation significantly influences the diffusion of knowledge between regions and contributes to regional innovation. This means that collaboration between inventors from different locations is a tacit knowledge transmission mechanism. The results allowed to corroborate the important role of this type of market relation in the transmission of knowledge, showing that not all diffusion of knowledge occurs through pure overflows. In addition, the diffusion of knowledge through interregional co-operation is also localized in space as inventors tend to collaborate with partners from geographically close regions.