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A note on the geographical concentration of scientific personnel in the USA

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Abstract

Theories of urban size and growth have assumed that innovativeness is more common to larger cities. This paper tests the relationship between three measures of scientific employment, and the population of U. S. metropolitan areas. Elasticities of scientific employment with respect to city size and nonlinear functions of city size suggest that innovative ability of the largest urban areas declined somewhat from 196 to 1972. Diseconomies of size for scientific activity may be becoming dominant in thelargest cities in contrast to prevailing assumptions about the advantages of urban size.

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Notes and References

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  1. Department of Geography, University of Oklahoma, 73019, Norman, OK, (USA)

    E. J. Malecki

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Malecki, E.J. A note on the geographical concentration of scientific personnel in the USA. Scientometrics 3, 107–114 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02025633

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