Industry R&D Location: the role of accessibility to university R&D and institutions of higher education

The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent that the location and the extent of higher education and university R&D, respectively, influence the location and the extent of industry R&D in Sweden using an accessibility approach. After an extensive literature survey, we develop a simple theoretical model for the location of R&D from the perspective of a multinational enterprise. From this theoretical model, we then deduce our empirical model, which we then estimate in the form of a Tobit model using data from Swedish labour market regions and municipalities. The authors show that the location of industry R&D in Sweden can be partly explained by the intra-municipal accessibility to students in higher education, while the accessibility to university R&D turned out to be insignificant.