Abstract

Ideas drive productivity growth, yet productivity growth has slowed in recent decades despite the wave of innovation in digital, information-carrying technologies. Prior work focusing on economic and knowledge complexity as indicators of geographically located capabilities has considered the role of social networks in conveying ideas between people, particularly the tacit knowledge for which person-to-person contact is needed. This chapter builds on this approach by introducing underpinning infrastructure as an essential, common-resource asset that determines people’s ability to use ideas productively. Infrastructure, broadly defined, shapes the “adjacent possible” of economic activity in any location. The social network transmitting ideas between individuals is layered on top of built, physical networks; these have a history and a geography whose affordances and constraints shape innovation and ultimately productivity growth. Broad-based economic growth rests on the possibilities afforded by glass, steel, and concrete.

JEL Classification: H54, O10, O33

Keywords: infrastructure, ideas, productivity, networks, complexity

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