Agglomeration Economies and the Role of Universities in the Regional Development of Southeast European Countries

Most of the Southeast European countries experience constrains in relation to science, technology and innovation policies. The main obstacle to achieving sustainable innovation systems in these countries is the lack of sustainable and long lasting cooperation in the field of technology transfer between the private sector and the universities. This paper gives a critical overview of the theories claiming that most of the innovative activities depend on the (non)existence of certain preconditions which lead to agglomeration economies and clustering of small firms around research universities in so-called technology districts, scientific parks and regional innovation systems. The paper builds upon the scientific literature exploring the geographic aspects of knowledge externalities and the localized relationships between the main stakeholders of the triple helix innovation model in the Southeast European countries. It features the results of a survey conducted over 50 Macedonian high technology firms. The paper tries to build a methodology for testing the effect of agglomeration on university technology transfer by relying on a triad of variables, i.e. university patent citations, number of graduates finding jobs in the area, and number of local faculty spin offs. This work gives a unique perspective to the analysis of agglomeration economies and their impact on the success rate of the university technology transfer by expanding the normative and socio-cultural model proposed by Gilson (1999). The empirical data complement the theoretical observations of the authors of this paper.