We review the literature on national innovation systems. We first focus on the emergence of the concept of innovation systems, reviewing its historical origins and three main flavors (associated to three “founding fathers” of the concept). After this, we discuss how the notion of innovation...

During World War II, the U.S. government's Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) undertook one of the largest public investments in applied R&D in U.S. history, entering into thousands of contracts with firms and universities to perform research essential to the war effort. Using...

Innovation in agriculture differs from innovation elsewhere in the economy in several important ways. In this chapter we highlight differences arising from (a) the atomistic nature of agricultural production, (b) the spatial specificity of agricultural technologies and the implications for...

The challenge of achieving socially optimal incentives for innovation in public goods faces twin market failures: a market failure to adequately promote public goods invention and a market failure to implement innovative public goods once developed. Though innovation in private goods sometimes...

Governments purchase everything from airplanes to zucchini. This paper investigates the role of the technological content of government procurement in innovation. We theoretically show that a shift in the composition of public purchases toward high-tech products translates into higher...

In the last decades, innovation activity has been defined by an increasing complexity and a faster pace of the underlying technological change. Accordingly, several studies have shown that competitive systems of innovation benefit from being able to build upon a wide but integrated spectrum of...

Information about the success of a new technology is usually held asymmetrically between the research and development (R&D)-performing firm and potential lenders and investors. This raises the cost of capital for financing R&D externally, resulting in financing constraints on R&D especially for...

Der Beitrag behandelt die wissenschaftlichen Diskussion um die Beeinflussung regionaler Innovationsbedingungen, die mit dem von Hans-Jürgen Ewers und Ko-autoren entworfenen Konzept der innovationsorientierten Regionalpolitik angestoßen wurde. Zwar haben sich viele der dem Konzept der...

Research and innovation partnerships involving firms or firms and public research organizations (PROs) have been increasing over the last twenty years in OECD countries. In this paper we present empirical evidence about the impact of government sponsored R&D programs on firms' partnership...

This contribution focuses on the heterogeneity in innovation capacity within Europe across its different Member States. Who are the leading and who are the lagging EU countries? Is there a trend towards convergence over time? And how has the crisis affected this trend of convergence? We then...