Knowledge spillovers: does the geographic proximity effect decay over time? A discipline-level analysis, accounting for cognitive proximity, with and without self-citations

TL;DR

This study examines how the influence of geographic proximity on scientific knowledge flows changes over time, considering cognitive proximity and self-citations, revealing persistent effects domestically but diminishing differences when self-citations are excluded.

Contribution

It provides a discipline-level analysis of geographic proximity effects over time, incorporating cognitive proximity and self-citations, which is novel in understanding knowledge flow dynamics.

Findings

Geographic proximity influences domestic knowledge flows over time.

Excluding self-citations reduces the perceived effect of geographic proximity.

Differences in proximity effects vary across disciplines and decline over time.

Abstract

This work analyzes the variation over time of the effect of geographic distance on knowledge flows. The flows are measured through the citations exchanged between scientific publications, including and excluding self-citations. To calculate geographic distances between citing and cited publication, each publication is associated with a "prevailing" territory, according to the authors' affiliations. We then apply a gravity model to account for the research size of the territories, in terms of cognitive proximity of citing-cited publications. The field of observation is the 2010-2017 world publications citing the 2010-2012 Italian publications, as indexed in the Web of Science. The results show that in domestic knowledge flows, geographic proximity remains an influential factor through time, although with differences among disciplines and trends of attenuating effects. Finally, we replicate the analyses of knowledge flows but with the exclusion of self-citations: in this manner the effect of geographic proximity seems reduced, particularly at the national scale, but the differences (with vs without self-citations) lessen through time. As shown in previous works, the effect of distance on continental flows is modest (imperceptible for intercontinental flows), yet here too time has some influence, including concerning exclusion of self-citations.