Research parks and the location of industrial research laboratories: an analysis of the effectiveness of a policy intervention

Utilizing county-level data, this paper predicts the growth in the number of private industrial research laboratories between 1960 and 1985. This was a period of rapid growth and spatial reorganization in industrial research activity. A multi-equation model which allows the influence of unmeasured factors and selectivity to be taken into account is used to test the ability of a policy intervention, research parks, to affect the growth in the number of local laboratories. Although the presence of research parks is correlated with the number of laboratories, the analysis indicates that research parks were not effective local development tools but instead benefitted from the growth of research activity. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.