The Geography of Innovation in South Africa: A First Cut

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The Geography of Innovation in South Africa A
First Cut

• Jo Lorentzen
• HSRC, Cape Town
• jlorentzen_at_hsrc.ac.za

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Outline

• Background
• A bit of theory
• How close for comfort?
• Data you got and data you aint
• What about a knowledge production function?
• What goes on in the provinces?
• Linkages between productive and knowledge
  activities
• Whats next?

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A bit of theory, all over the place

• National domain most appropriate unit of analysis
  for understanding differential growth rates
  (Freeman 1987, Lundvall 1992, Nelson 1993)
• Regional growth differentials far more
  challenging (Cooke 2001, Howell 2005, Krugman
  1991, Marshall 1890, Piore and Sabel 1984, Porter
  2003, Romer 1990, Storper 1997)
• Specialisation (Marshall) or diversity (Jacobs)
  externalities?
• Empirical evidence on role of proximity and
  specialisation vs diversity inconclusive (mostly
  based on evidence from US and Europe)

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Conclusion we know precious little

• Once we account for innovation and knowledge
  creation processes, it becomes very difficult to
  apply simple stylised cluster constructs, because
  there is neither a representative Marshallian
  firm nor an illustrative innovative cluster.
  Co-location therefore may or may not offer
  structures, organisation and institutions which
  improve the likelihood of local innovation.
• Iammarino and McCann in Research Policy (2006)

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Data you got and data you aint
Systematic? Public? Electronic? Online?
Patents (CIPRO) Yes Yes No No
Value added (Quantec) Yes No Yes No
RD (HSRC) Yes No Yes No
Publications (DoE,NRF) No Yes Sort of No
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Conclusions, open questions, future work

• Regional or local innovation systems possibly
  exist in GP and esp. in WC, but nowhere else.
• Is this because or urban economies or of
  agglomeration advantages?
• Are there cross-provincial knowledge spillovers
  or technology transfer?
• Estimate a knowledge production function.
• GP case study of specialisation vs diversity
  externalities.
• WC case study of regional knowledge production,
  sourcing, and use.
• MP, LP, NW sectoral (mining) innovation system?