In this paper, we investigate the relationship between local wages and the internal structure of the regional knowledge base. The purpose is to assess if the workers’ compensations are related to the peculiarities of the knowledge base of the regions in which they supply their labor services. The test of this hypothesis is based on the assessment of the impact of related vis-à-vis unrelated knowledge variety on cross-regional wage differentials. The empirical analysis is carried out by exploiting patent data and a unique employer–employee administrative dataset. First, using OECD-PATREG data on patent filing, we build information entropy indexes proxying the variety of NUTS 3 regions’ knowledge bases, and the decomposition in the related and unrelated component. Second, we assess the impact of these indexes on wages based on administrative data from the Italian National Institute of Social Security. Our results suggest that workers employed in regions with a heterogenous knowledge structure earn positive wage premia, while related variety has a negative effect on compensation levels.

中文翻译：

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技术外部性和工资：来自意大利 NUTS 3 地区的新证据

在本文中，我们研究了当地工资与区域知识库内部结构之间的关系。目的是评估工人的报酬是否与他们提供劳务的地区的知识基础的特殊性有关。该假设的检验基于相关知识多样性与不相关知识多样性对跨地区工资差异的影响的评估。通过利用专利数据和独特的雇主-雇员管理数据集进行实证分析。首先，利用 OECD-PATREG 的专利申请数据，我们构建了代表 NUTS 3 区域知识库多样性的信息熵指数，以及相关和不相关组件的分解。其次，我们根据意大利国家社会保障研究所的行政数据评估这些指数对工资的影响。我们的研究结果表明，在知识结构异质的地区就业的工人可以获得正的工资溢价，而相关的多样性对薪酬水平产生负面影响。