The Impact of Agglomerative Industrial Dynamic Externalities on Regional Technology Gaps: A Case of the ICT Industry in Taiwan

All other things being equal, questions arise as to whether the location of firms in distinct regions will result in variations in their technology capabilities, and what the nature of the local industrial environment is that determines regional technology gaps. This study investigates these issues from a perspective of industrial agglomerative dynamic externalities, examining the roles played by three influential assertions on regional technology gaps, namely, the Marshall-Arrow-Romer (MAR), Porter and Jacobs hypotheses. The results tend to favour the contention of Porter hypothesis on the contribution of the nature of local industrial agglomeration to the production technologies of information and computer technology (ICT) firms.