The geography of innovation in South Africa: a first cut

Abstract

The geography of innovation in the developing world is poorly understood, both because certain spatial economic data are difficult to access or do not exist at all and because the existing information is rarely submitted for analysis at subnational level, where the relevant literature would conceptually and empirically inform the research questions. This paper makes a contribution to addressing both shortcomings for the example of South Africa. It discusses how well productive and knowledge-based activities are integrated in the country's provinces and analyses how relevant the geographic proximity between firms and other knowledge users or producers is for this relationship.