Is the city centre synonymous with (non-)cooperative innovation? Innovation in Knowledge-Intensive Services through intra-metropolitan space of Mexico City

Source abstract

Innovation in Knowledge-Intensive Services (KIS) holds a central position in the global economy. Innovation developed by KIS can occur in either a cooperative or non-cooperative mode with other economic agents. The cooperative mode has traditionally been associated with the central area of the city, while the non-cooperative mode has been linked to the urban periphery, where KIS presumably finds favourable conditions for their innovative activities. By distinguishing between cooperative and non-cooperative innovation in KIS, this article aims to analyse whether this spatial distribution is followed in the intra-metropolitan area of Mexico City. Microdata on industrial innovation activity and statistical tools are employed to evaluate the global and local effects of agglomeration economies and urban innovation dynamics. The results indicate that, in addition to the spatial concentrations suggested in the literature, there are also clusters of cooperative innovation in the periphery and of non-cooperative innovation in the ‘central milieu’, both of which are associated with location economies and innovative dynamics. These findings challenge the notion that a specific mode of innovation in KIS is inherently linked to a particular urban space, and instead highlight the spatially differentiated utilisation of intra-urban conditions.