Taken with the success of American Silicon Valley, a number of states strive to create their own economic ‘cluster’, i.e. geographically localized zone of innovation economy. In Russia this ambition has shaped into the Skolkovo ‘innocity’. However attractive the idea of a governed innovation jump is, the experience of many countries demonstrates that a successful ‘cluster’ cannot be created following a bureaucratic order.
Pierre Desrochers is Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto, Research Fellow with the Mercatus Center at the George Mason University. Prior to 2010 Dr. Desrochers was Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University in North Carolina. His research activities focus on economic development, technological innovation, intellectual property, urban studies and international trade.
