Alfred Marshall didn't have to wait for Silicon Valley to evolve before concluding that some places are hubs of intangible knowledge. In 1890, the renowned Cambridge economist opined that “great are the advantages which people following the same skilled trade get from near neighbourhood to one another. The mysteries of the trade become no mysteries; but are as it were in the air … if one man starts a new idea, it is taken up by others and combined with suggestions of their own; and thus it becomes the source of further new ideas.” Marshall knew that where you live and work affects what you learn and what you earn. One question that economists have struggled to answer, though, is exactly how and between whom knowledge spreads.
艾爾弗雷德?馬歇爾(Alfred Marshall)無需等到硅谷出現(xiàn)就已斷定，有些地方將成為無形知識(shí)的中心。1890年，這位劍橋大學(xué)(Cambridge)的著名經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家認(rèn)為，“從事同一種技能型行業(yè)的人，彼此從行業(yè)區(qū)附近獲得的好處是巨大的。行業(yè)的秘密不再成為秘密；而似乎成了公開之事……如果某人有了一種新思想，它會(huì)得到他人的采納，并與他人的想法結(jié)合在一起，繼而萌發(fā)出更多新思想。”馬歇爾知道，你生活和工作的地方，會(huì)對(duì)你所學(xué)知識(shí)和所掙工資產(chǎn)生影響。但經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家難以回答的一個(gè)問題是，知識(shí)到底是如何傳播的，以及在哪些人之間傳播。