Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance

Wesley M. Cohen

Chapter Chapter 4 in Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, 2010, vol. 1, pp 129-213 from Elsevier

Abstract: This chapter reviews the empirical literature on the determination of firms’ and industries’ innovative activity and performance, highlighting the questions addressed, the approaches adopted, impediments to progress in the field, and research opportunities. We review the “neo-Schumpeterian” empirical literature that examines the effects of firm size and market concentration upon innovation, focusing on robust findings, questions of interpretation, and the identification of major gaps. We also consider the more modest literature that considers the effect on innovation of firm characteristics other than size. Finally, we review the literature that considers three classes of factors that affect interindustry variation in innovative activity and performance: demand, appropriability, and technological opportunity conditions.

Keywords: innovation; market structure; R&D; technological change; O30; O31; O32; O34; O38; L1; L2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (355)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016972181001004X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:haechp:v1_129

DOI: 10.1016/S0169-7218(10)01004-X

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Handbook of the Economics of Innovation from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().