The Relationship Between High-Quality Startups and Geography

Although the Silicon Valley remains the epicenter of global innovation and entrepreneurship, there’s no shortage of concerned voices arguing that America’s innovative engine has run out of steam. In his new book The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the economist Robert J. Gordon argues that America’s great glory days of innovation are behind it. Others such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers agree that the U.S. has entered a prolonged phase of low innovation, low productivity, low growth, and “secular stagnation.”

A new report by MIT economists Jorge Guzman and Scott Stern generates relevant and important data on the increasingly concentrated geography of American innovation and entrepreneurship. The report develops several key measures of quality and quantity of entrepreneurship in the U.S., covering the period from 1988-2014.