Mojgan Samandar - Istituto di Economia, Scuola Superiore Sant Anna, Pisa, Italy
Ali Eshtehardi - Istituto di Economia, Scuola Superiore Sant Anna, Pisa, Italy
Seyed Kamran Bagheri - Istituto di Management, Scuola Superiore Sant Anna, Pisa, Italy
Parya Raoofi - University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, email

The present study investigates the contributing factors to innovative output of Iranian provinces, measured by the number of granted Iranian patents to resident applicants. To this end, spatial knowledge production function is estimated by employing Principal Components Analysis (PCA). Total patent per capita and three categories of patents by institutional ownership (i.e. individuals, companies, and universities) are studied, separately as dependent variables. Our results indicate that welfare variables have played a relatively more important role in explaining innovative behaviors at the regional level. However, companies’ innovative behavior is affected more by R&D Investment and Human Capital variables. In addition, our results show the low level of knowledge spillovers across Iranian provinces.

Regional innovation behaviour, Knowledge Production Function, Iran, Patent, Spatial Knowledge Spillover