Spatial Aspects of Technology Transfer: Evidence from Kentucky

This paper reports the investigation of the geographies of new technologic ideas and their transfer from the realm of ideas and laboratories to the realm of commercialization. Kentucky's economic development strategies have slowly drifted from a dominant focus on the recruitment of branch manufacturing plants to the facilitation of a more entrepreneurial economy. Careful examination of the spatial distributions of patents, venture capital, federal grants for small businesses, and government facilities designed to support technologic ventures clearly indicates Kentucky's existing disadvantages for this important form of economic development. Additionally, spatial variation within Kentucky clearly demonstrates the initiation of programs that will result in another round of uneven development. Appalachian Kentucky, in particular, is not prepared to participate in economic development that is based on the creation and commercialization of new technologies.