Collective Learning and Economic Complexity
SYNOPSIS:
How do teams, cities, and nations learn? How do they acquire the knowledge they need to enter new activities and generate inclusive and sustainable growth?
This course will equip students with a basic understanding of both, the mechanisms that govern the creation, diffusion, and valuation of knowledge, and the tools needed to quantify these mechanisms.
The course is divided into three parts. The first part describes the mechanisms that contribute to the collective accumulation of knowledge (e.g. learning curves). The second part focuses on knowledge diffusion across geographies, social networks, and productive activities. The third part focuses on the consequences of knowledge accumulation, for inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
The course’s learning goals will be supported with hands-on data exercises in which students will use data on international trade, employment, and patents, to reproduce classical studies.
INSTRUCTOR:
César A. Hidalgo PhD
FIRST DAY OF CLASS:
November 10, 2021
ROOM:
TSE Auditorium 6.
REGISTER:
Click here to register for the course here.
*several emails have been bouncing back. If you have not received any class-related emails, please register again and make sure your email is entered correctly.
Schedule (All times are CET (e.g. Toulouse time))
Classes will be on Wednesdays, but the starting time and duration will vary due to room availability constraints. Please pay close attention to the schedule below:
Wednesday, November 10: 17h00-18:30h CET (90 min) (1 unit)
Wednesday, November 17: 17h00-18h30 CET (90 min) (1 unit)
Wednesday, November 24: 17h-18h30 CET (90 min) (1 unit)
Wednesday, December 1: 17h-20h CET (180 min, with a small break in between) (2 to 3 units)
Wednesday, December 8: 17h-18h30 CET (90 min) (1 unit)
Syllabus
Week 1 (November 10): INTRODUCTION [90 MINS]
This class will introduce the basic properties of knowledge, such as its non-rival nature, its combinatorial nature, and its tacit or explicit nature.
Week 2 (November 17): LEARNING CURVES [90 MINS]
This class will focus on the accumulation of knowledge in time, by reviewing work on both learning and forgetting.
Week 3 (November 24): THE GEOGRAPHIC DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE [90 MINS]
This class will review work on the geographic diffusion of knowledge.
Week 4 (December 1): ECONOMIC COMPLEXITY [180 MINS]
This class will introduce methods and techniques from economic complexity and will study the implication of these new methods and ideas.
Week 5 (December 8): WRAPUP [90 MINS]
We will complete the semester with a summary of lessons learned and a group discussion of the social and policy implications of our understanding of the principles governing the creation and diffusion of knowledge.
REFERENCES
(Most of these papers are available in Google Scholar or in your University Library):
Abernathy, W.J. & Wayne, K., 1974, Limits of the Learning Curve, Harvard Business Review, (September 1974).
Alshamsi, A., Pinheiro, F.L. & Hidalgo, C.A., 2018, ‘Optimal diversification strategies in the networks of related products and of related research areas’, Nature Communications, 9(1), 1328.
Argote, L. & Epple, D., 1990, ‘Learning Curves in Manufacturing’, Science, 247(4945), 920–924.
Audretsch, D.B. & Feldman, M.P., 1996, ‘R&D Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and Production’, The American Economic Review, 86(3), 630–640.
Audretsch, D.B. & Feldman, M.P., 2004, ‘Chapter 61 - Knowledge Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation’, in J.V. Henderson & J.-F. Thisse (eds.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Cities and Geography., vol. 4, pp. 2713–2739, Elsevier.
Balland, P.A., Boschma, R., Crespo, J. & Rigby, D.L., 2018, ‘Smart specialization policy in the European Union: relatedness, knowledge complexity and regional diversification’, Regional Studies, 1–17.
Balland, P.A., Jara-Figueroa, C., Petralia, S., Steijn, M., Rigby, D.L. & Hidalgo, C., 2018, Complex Economic Activities Concentrate in Large Cities, Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY.
Balland, P.-A. & Rigby, D., 2017, ‘The Geography of Complex Knowledge’, Economic Geography, 93(1), 1–23.
Boschma, R., 2005, ‘Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment’, Regional Studies, 39(1), 61–74.
Boschma, R., Balland, P.-A. & Kogler, D.F., 2015, ‘Relatedness and technological change in cities: the rise and fall of technological knowledge in US metropolitan areas from 1981 to 2010’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 24(1), 223–250.
Breschi, S. & Lissoni, F., 2005, ‘Knowledge Networks from Patent Data’, in H.F. Moed, W. Glänzel & U. Schmoch (eds.), Handbook of Quantitative Science and Technology Research: The Use of Publication and Patent Statistics in Studies of S&T Systems, pp. 613–643, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
Fink, T.M.A. & Reeves, M., 2019, ‘How much can we influence the rate of innovation?’, Science Advances, 5(1), eaat6107.
Fink, T.M.A., Reeves, M., Palma, R. & Farr, R.S., 2017, ‘Serendipity and strategy in rapid innovation’, Nature Communications, 8(1), 2002.
Fleming, L. & Sorenson, O., 2001, ‘Technology as a complex adaptive system: evidence from patent data’, Research Policy, 30(7), 1019–1039.
Florida, R., 2019a, How Housing Supply Became the Most Controversial Issue in Urbanism, CityLab.
Florida, R., 2019b, Blue-Collar and Service Workers Fare Better Outside Superstar Cities, CityLab.
Guevara, M.R., Hartmann, D., Aristarán, M., Mendoza, M. & Hidalgo, C.A., 2016, ‘The research space: using career paths to predict the evolution of the research output of individuals, institutions, and nations’, Scientometrics, 109(3), 1695–1709.
Hartmann, D., Guevara, M.R., Jara-Figueroa, C., Aristarán, M. & Hidalgo, C.A., 2017, ‘Linking Economic Complexity, Institutions, and Income Inequality’, World Development, 93, 75–93.
Hausmann, R. & Hidalgo, C.A., 2011, ‘The network structure of economic output’, Journal of Economic Growth, 1–34.
Hausmann, R., Hidalgo, C.A., Bustos, S., Coscia, M., Simoes, A. & Yildirim, M.A., 2014, The atlas of economic complexity: Mapping paths to prosperity, MIT Press.
Henrich, J., 2015, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Hidalgo, C.A., 2018, ‘Economic complexity: From useless to keystone’, Nature Physics, 14(1), 9–10.
Hidalgo, C.A., Balland, P.-A., Boschma, R., Delgado, M., Feldman, M., Frenken, K., Glaeser, E., He, C., Kogler, D.F., Morrison, A., Neffke, F., Rigby, D., Stern, S., Zheng, S. & Zhu, S., 2018, The Principle of Relatedness, in A.J. Morales, C. Gershenson, D. Braha, A.A. Minai & Y. Bar-Yam (eds.), Unifying Themes in Complex Systems IX, Springer Proceedings in Complexity., 451–457, Springer International Publishing.
Hidalgo, C.A. & Hausmann, R., 2009, ‘The building blocks of economic complexity’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(26), 10570–10575.
Hidalgo, C.A., Klinger, B., Barabási, A.-L. & Hausmann, R., 2007, ‘The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations’, Science, 317(5837), 482–487.
Hidalgo, C. A. (2021). Economic complexity theory and applications. Nature Reviews Physics, 3(2), 92-113.
Jaffe, A.B., Trajtenberg, M. & Henderson, R., 1993, ‘Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(3), 577–598.
Jara-Figueroa, C., Jun, B., Glaeser, E.L. & Hidalgo, C.A., 2018, ‘The role of industry-specific, occupation-specific, and location-specific knowledge in the growth and survival of new firms’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(50), 12646–12653.
Jara-Figueroa, C., Yu, A.Z. & Hidalgo, C.A., 2019, ‘How the medium shapes the message: Printing and the rise of the arts and sciences’, PLOS ONE, 14(2), e0205771.
Lee, K. & Malerba, F., 2017, ‘Catch-up cycles and changes in industrial leadership:Windows of opportunity and responses of firms and countries in the evolution of sectoral systems’, Research Policy, 46(2), 338–351.
Lee, K., Szapiro, M. & Mao, Z., 2018, ‘From Global Value Chains (GVC) to Innovation Systems for Local Value Chains and Knowledge Creation’, The European Journal of Development Research, 30(3), 424–441.
Rapoport, H., 2016, ‘Migration and globalization: what’s in it for developing countries?’, International Journal of Manpower, 37(7), 1209–1226.
Rodríguez-Pose, A., 2018, The revenge of the places that don’t matter, VoxEU.org.
Ronen, S., Gonçalves, B., Hu, K.Z., Vespignani, A., Pinker, S. & Hidalgo, C.A., 2014, ‘Links that speak: The global language network and its association with global fame’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(52), E5616–E5622.
Zheng, S., Sun, W., Wu, J. & Kahn, M.E., 2017, ‘The birth of edge cities in China: Measuring the effects of industrial parks policy’, Journal of Urban Economics, 100, 80–103.
Zhu, S., He, C. & Zhou, Y., 2017, ‘How to jump further and catch up? Path-breaking in an uneven industry space’, Journal of Economic Geography, 17(3), 521–545.