Data and Code for: The Effect of High-Tech Clusters on the Productivity of Top Inventors

The high-tech sector is increasingly concentrated in a small number of cities. I use longitudinal data on 109,846 inventors to quantify the productivity advantages of Silicon-Valley style clusters. <br>I find significant productivity gains from geographical agglomeration. When an inventor moves to a city with a larger cluster of inventors in the same field, she experiences a significant increase in the number and quality of patents produced. A case study based on an exogenous shock to Rochester’s high tech cluster confirms the magnitude of agglomeration benefits. The agglomeration of inventors generates sizable gains in the aggregate number of patents produced in the US.