Innovation, Democracy and Efficiency
Exploring the Innovation Puzzle within the European Union's Regional Development Policies
Francesco Grillo, Raffaella Y. Nanetti
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Innovation, Democracy and Efficiency
Exploring the Innovation Puzzle within the European Union's Regional Development Policies
Francesco Grillo, Raffaella Y. Nanetti
About This Book
Endogenous growth theory has significantlyimpacted most of the developing and developed countries, shifting priorities ofindustrial policies towards innovation. In line with this trend, the EuropeanUnion significantly increased its budgetary allocation for R&D. However, statistical data show a weak correlation between R&D expenditure and theacceleration of economic growth. Regional innovation policies display divergentreturns according to different institutional conditions and policy choices. Grillo and Nanetti attempt to understand thereasons that lie behind differences in performance. Their results show thatbetter performing innovation strategies require the following factors: clearchoices of locally congruent smart specialization; strong capacity of public investmentto stimulate additional private investment; clear distribution ofresponsibilities for decision-making and independence of policy implementationfrom political interference; and problem solving partnerships amongst innovators, universities, and governments that pre-exist the programmes. These factorspoint to a relationship between democracy (defined as openness ofpolicy-making) and innovation (as technology-enabled growth) which is exploredthroughout this book.