Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/333401 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
CEPIE Working Paper No. 02/25
Publisher: 
Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE), Dresden
Abstract: 
Meeting others with different backgrounds brings up new ideas. This paper shows that this not only matters for a background in heterogeneous industries or nationalities, but that regional differences matter too. Regions within a country vary in their traditions and culture. Cultural homogeneity within regions becomes mixed due to internal migration, which, like international migration, increases the diversity of a place. In a novel approach, I look at diversity in German municipalities, measured by different family names, and investigate its effect on the number of generated patents. I use a unique dataset from a 1996 phonebook and casualty lists from WWI. There is a positive association between innovation and diversity when defined by the share of new names, a deconcentration measure, or a Shannon index. Causality is established by using instrumental variables estimations with historical borders. I show that intra-country diversity affects patenting positively and conclude that regional differences matter for economic outcomes.
Subjects: 
cultural diversity
innovation
family names
patents
local level
Germany
JEL: 
R11
O30
Z13
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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