What is the effect of synergy in international collaboration on regional economies?

TL;DR

This paper investigates how increased synergy from international collaboration influences regional economic growth, specifically examining Norwegian data to translate information-theoretic measures into tangible economic outcomes like turnover.

Contribution

It introduces a method to convert information-theoretic synergy measures into economic terms, applied to Norwegian data to assess international collaboration effects.

Findings

Increased synergy correlates with higher regional turnover.

International cooperation enhances regional economic performance.

Method provides a new way to quantify collaboration impact.

Abstract

We analyze the effects of relative increments of mutual information among the geographical, technological, and organizational distributions of firms on the relative augmentation of regional summary turnover in terms of synergies. How do increases in synergy in international cooperation affect regional turnover? The methodological contribution of this study is that we translate the synergy (abstractly measured in bits of information) into more familiar economic terms, such as turnover for the special case of domestic-foreign collaborations. The analysis is based on Norwegian data, as Norway is a small country with an open and export-oriented economy. Data for Norway is publicly available in great detail.