• knowledge spillovers
• patent value
• CBSA
• USA
• geography of citations
• patent family size
• forward citations
• backward citations

The present thesis focuses on how local knowledge spillovers affect the value of innovations. We test related hypotheses using a set of over 3 million USPTO patents granted between 1975 and 2015 spread across 686 US CBSAs. We find that frequently using local knowledge from the same or adjacent region increases patent value. This effect is positive and significant for both measures of innovation: forward citations and patent family size. Additionally, we look at whether this influence remains positive over the years, in different technological fields and across different levels of local knowledge stock. Results show positive and significant consistency for two of the three dimensions mentioned.
More generally, our findings provide evidence that local knowledge spillovers in close proximity are associated with a positive effect on the value of innovations, granted that usage of local spillovers occurs as a recombination of knowledge across different but complementary sectors and technologies.