Concurrence et innovation en Europe. Le dilemme de la compétitivité

Competition among firms as well as among countries is one of the main innovation engines. In this perspective, growth policy should be understood as the formulation and enactment of the rules that assure full competition. However, things are much more complex in reality. Innovation is a creative destruction process that implies the disruption of a given productive structure, and the construction of a new and different one. This process can succeed or fail. It brings about co-ordination problems, not only at the innovating firms? level but also in relation with the environment. Focusing on the co-ordination conditions of the out-of-equilibrium process stirred by the choice of a given technology rather than on the incentives determining this choice has paramount analytical and policy implications. Monopolist practices as well as active macroeconomic policies thus appear as necessary means to guarantee the viability of the process of change. This view calls for trade-offs between conflicting objectives. JEL Classification: L1, L03, L04.