As declining state and federal aid forces regional governments to become more self-reliant, there is new interest in understanding factors that support regional resilience to economic and natural disasters. Using a sample of 365 metropolitan statistical areas, we examine one such factor: how regional government fragmentation shapes patented innovation, a known mechanism for bolstering resilience. While we find no evidence that the number of general-purpose governments (per capita) impact regional innovation, we do find that regions with a higher density of special-purpose governments have less inclusive innovation. This is true in terms both of who does the inventing and what is invented. Previous research links higher numbers of special-purpose government units to weaker economic performance; our results suggest higher numbers may also hinder regions’ abilities to adapt to disruptions.

随着州和联邦援助的减少迫使地区政府变得更加自力更生，人们对了解支持地区抵御经济和自然灾害的因素产生了新的兴趣。我们使用 365 个大都市统计区的样本，研究了这样一个因素：地方政府的分散如何塑造专利创新，这是一种已知的增强弹性的机制。虽然我们没有发现通用政府数量（人均）影响区域创新的证据，但我们确实发现特殊政府密度较高的地区创新包容性较低。就谁进行发明和发明了什么而言，这都是事实。先前的研究将较多数量的特殊目的政府单位与较弱的经济表现联系起来；