Disruptive innovation and spatial inequality

Although technological change is widely credited as driving the last 200 years of economic growth, its role in shaping patterns inequality remains under-explored. Drawing parallels across two industrial revolutions United States, this paper provides new evidence a relationship between highly disruptive forms innovation and spatial inequality. Using universe patents granted 1920 2010 by US Patent Trademark Office (USPTO), we identify innovations through their rapid complementarity with other widespread use. We then assign more less to subnational regions geography States. document three findings that are literature. First, exhibit distinctive clustering phases understood be those which reshape economy; they increasingly dispersed periods. Second, discover ranks locations capture most relatively unstable revolutions. Third, regression estimates suggest for regulating overall output income