Blueprint for an Innovation Economy in Florida Research as Economic Foundation | Page 8

The distance between two authors in the visualization
approximately indicates the relatedness of the authors in the
co-citation network. The color of an item is determined by
the cluster (of related authors) to which the item belongs.
As with the author graphic, the distance between
two concepts in Figure 4 approximates the
relatedness of the concepts in the co-citation
network. The color of an item is determined by
the cluster (of commonly used terms) to which
the item belongs.
FIGURE 4: THE AFFLICTIONS,
PROCESSES AND PATHWAYS TO CURE:
CONCEPTS
Together, these provide a sense of the work in the
field that led to AxoGen and the Avance ® Nerve
Graft. These are highly specialized fields, with
work done in basic, applied and clinical research. 11
THE CREATION AND USE OF NEW RECIPES
One could rightly note that there was a good deal
of living, thinking and progress prior to 1989. Sir
Isaac Newton in 1676 recognized the cumulative
nature of knowledge in this quote: “If I have
seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of
Giants”. 12 Yet, understanding the current state of
knowledge in a geography is key to understanding
its relative advantage in high-wage, high-value,
wealth-creating technology fields. Ideas, unlike
physical resources, can be infinite and provide
ever-increasing returns.
In the second edition of The Concise
Encyclopedia of Economic Growth, 13 Economist
Paul Romer put it this way:
FROM THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ECONOMIC GROWTH, SECOND EDITION:
“Economic growth occurs whenever people take resources and rearrange them in ways that
make them more valuable. A useful metaphor for production in an economy comes from the
kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according
to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking
in the economy produces undesirable side effects. If economic growth could be achieved
only by doing more and more of the same kind of cooking, we would eventually run out of
raw materials and suffer from unacceptable levels of pollution and nuisance. Human history
teaches us, however, that economic growth springs from better recipes, not just from more
cooking. New recipes generally produce fewer unpleasant side effects and generate more
economic value per unit of raw material”
6
-Economist Paul Romer