Knowledge in Regional Economic Growth—The Role of Knowledge Accessibility

This paper analyzes the role of knowledge in regional economic growth by focusing on knowledge accessibility. The research question is the following: can the variation in knowledge accessibility between regions in a given period explain the variation in growth performance of regions in subsequent periods? A main assumption in the paper is that knowledge accessibility transforms into potential knowledge flows. Our results show that differences in growth of value‐added per employee across regions can be explained by differences in knowledge accessibility. Intra‐municipal and intra‐regional knowledge accessibilities are significant and capable of explaining a significant share of the variation in growth of value‐added per employee between Swedish municipalities. However, inter‐regional knowledge accessibility turned out to be insignificant. This is interpreted as a clear indication of spatial dependence in the sense that the knowledge resources in a given municipality tend to have a positive effect on the growth of other municipalities, conditional on that the municipalities belong to the same functional region. Thus, the results of the analysis indicate that knowledge flows transcend municipal borders, but that they tend to be bound within functional regions.

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