What is the effect of synergy in international collaboration on regional economies?

Abstract

We analyze the effects of relative increments of mutual information among the geographical, technological, and organizational distributions of firms on the relative augmentation of regional summary turnover in terms of synergies. How do increases in synergy in international cooperation affect regional turnover? The methodological contribution of this study is that we translate the synergy (abstractly measured in bits of information) into more familiar economic terms, such as turnover for the special case of domestic-foreign collaborations. The analysis is based on Norwegian data, as Norway is a small country with an open and export-oriented economy. Data for Norway is publicly available in great detail.