Disentangling regional innovation capability: what really matters?

Roberto Ganau and Roberto Grandinetti

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Where does innovation come from? And do all regions innovate similarly? We deal with these questions by highlighting the complexity of the concepts of innovation capability and performance, and by testing their association at the European Union regional level. We disentangle inputs of innovation capability, and consider regional heterogeneity in institutional quality, to understand the relative endowment of what innovation inputs is associated with higher relative innovation performance. We find that ‘formal’ inputs–public and business R&D expenditure–do not work unconditionally and everywhere, and that less ‘formal’ ones–e.g., non-R&D expenditure and firms collaborating for innovation–matter particularly in regions with relative low-quality institutions. Moreover, institutional quality emerges as an innovation productivity-enhancing factor.

Keywords: European Union; Innovation capability; innovation performance; institutional quality; regions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O30 O52 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2021-07-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eff, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Industry and Innovation, 3, July, 2021, 28(6), pp. 749 - 772. ISSN: 1366-2716

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:114921

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