Path to innovation: Clusters

Industry Clusters have long been researched for their ability to increase productivity. The reasons behind such assumption rests on the observation that cities and local clusters seem to prosper by the spatial agglomeration of companies. Reduced transportation costs, ready access to a labor pool and ability to exchange knowledge are listed as the main forces that help such development. Although, there is abundance of work that evidences the relationship between productivity and clusters, there is little such systematic evidence that ties the innovative activity with clustering. Against this background the main purpose of the workshop is to understand the systematic relationship between innovation and the clustering activity from a theoretical, empirical and political perspective.