Search

Inventors located in a vibrant scientific community enjoy faster access to relevant publications. The key role of the local scientific community is to provide access to global knowledge and not necessarily to feed the colocated inventors with direct inputs. We develop the logic for these effects and provide empirical tests using dyads of publication and patent data. We develop a model that links scientific knowledge, codified through publication, to industry's inventive activity. Our analysis includes three key steps. First, we characterize the knowledge profile of local expertise for French NUTS3 jurisdictions. Second, we match scientific publications to industrial patents to consider the specific scientific knowledge useful to industrial invention. Finally, we examine the extent to which the presence of a local related scientific knowledge base provides utility for local inventions. Specifically, we consider the ability of local inventions to more rapidly avail themselves of scientific knowledge when located in a munificent location. We find that location reduces the timing to access to relevant worldwide publications by almost 1 year. Thus, colocation with scientific experts provides inventors a timing advantage by allowing earlier exploitation of recent global scientific discoveries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the effect of opioid use rates on local economic resilience through changes in industrial composition. We find regional opioid use rates adversely affect firm growth in general, with the greatest impact on small firms. Our results are robust to several identification strategies (Difference in Differences, Propensity Score Matching, and Instrumental Variables) and alternative empirical specifications. Our findings establish that local industrial composition and long‐term resilience are each adversely affected by the opioid public health crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banks are one of the key drivers of economic development across communities. Banking deserts—defined by inadequate banking access—limit access to capital, inhibit wealth accumulation, and increase exposure to predatory lending. Banking desert formation could be profit-driven, with lower-income and less densely populated regions more likely to become banking deserts. Discrimination could also play a role here: banks may have less presence in areas with higher minority populations. The authors use a panel, census tract-level data set for the entire state of North Carolina to investigate how these forces impact banking access and banking desert formation. Panel methodologies are incorporated to investigate the extent to which profit and discrimination mechanisms each drive banking access and banking desert formation. Profit and discrimination mechanisms are shown to play roles, highlighting the need for policies that mitigate bank branch losses in underserved neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community banks have a unique capacity to strengthen economic resilience by alleviating local firm credit constraints during economic downturns. We provide evidence that banking access and community bank market share affected both the county-level timing and duration of the Great Recession in the United States. Using the Cox Proportional Hazards and Heckman Selection models, we find that communities with a higher community bank market share are less likely to experience recession conditions, conditional on local bank health. This suggests community banks have unique institutional structures, allowing them to continue providing funds to firms through economic downturns. This research demonstrates that local financial institutions affect economic resilience, in particular the timing and duration of recession conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]