A Geographical Analysis of the Innovativeness of States

Previous research has indicated that emulation is one factor in the spread of policies among the American states. A network analysis was undertaken to identify the possible direct effects of innovative states on their neighbors as well as possible indirect influences on non-contiguous states. The resulting network indicates that some states are leaders for their neighbors and also appear to have additional effects of an indirect nature on more distant states. Cither states appear to serve as transmitters of the propensity to adopt policies from more innovative states.