Re-Thinking the Value of Local Explicit knowledge in the Contemporary Context: Time and Geography

Despite a fundamental revolution in digital technology, along with its ancillary reduction in the cost of transmitting knowledge through large databases and archives (Scopus, Web of Science, PATSTAT, etc..), whether the truism on the spatial localization of knowledge spillovers is on hold. In this work, we do not deal with tacit knowledge but are more focused on explicit knowledge. We test the key role of a locally explicit knowledge community by providing the collocated industrial technology with direct scientific inputs. We outline the reasoning behind these effects and conduct empirical tests by using data on 2,323,453 scientific publications and 359,286 French patents over 96 French mainland regions during 1994-2013. We find that locally explicit industrial knowledge is delicate to geographical proximity spillover, which is positively moderated by the revolution of digital technology. The study also shows that explicit academic knowledge provides local technology with accessing useful scientific knowledge not only locally but also internationally. The paper calls for a revision of spatial localisation of knowledge spillovers and pays attention to two types of explicit knowledge, which are codified and documented, that have heterogeneous effects on local technology for accessing scientific knowledge.