Regional innovation system , demographic ageing , knowledge production function , regional disparities , age complementarities
Abstract:
Concerns have been raised that demographic ageing may weaken the competitiveness
of knowledge-based economies and increase regional disparities. The age-creativity link is
however far from clear at the aggregate level. Contributing to this debate, we estimate the
causal effect of the workforce age structure on patenting activities for local labour markets
in Germany using a flexible knowledge production function and accounting for potential
endogeneity of the regional workforce structure. Overall, our results suggest that younger
workers boost regional innovations, but this effect partly hinges on the presence of older
workers as younger and older workers turn out to be complements in the production of
knowledge. With demographic aging mainly increasing the older workforce and shrinking
the younger one, our results imply that innovation levels in ageing societies may drop in the
future. Moreover, differences in the regional age structure currently explain around a sixth
of the innovation gap across German regions.
Das Dokument wird vom Publikationsserver der Universitätsbibliothek Mannheim bereitgestellt.
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