Firms' innovation performance and the role of the metropolitan location. Evidence from the European periphery

Tomasz Brodzicki , Anna Golejewska

Abstract

This paper assesses the role of metropolitan location in explaining firms’ innovation performance while accounting for other internal and external determinants of innovation. Using micro-level dataset and controlling for firm-specific, sector-specific and region-specific features, we identify a nuanced effect of location within metropolitan areas on the innovative performance of companies The results prove to vary for the different measures of innovation output of firms and in particular there is no metropolitan advantage detected for binary self-declared measures of innovations. The advantage is detected for the count-based quantity of innovation measures which is shown to critically depend on the higher performance of metropolitan-based firms in patenting and licencing. The interlinkages between location and firm-size matter and the results are asymmetric with particular benefits arising for micro-firms in their patenting and licencing.