There is a heated debated – in academia and in policy circles – about the usefulness of a stronger global regime of intellectual property rights (IPRs). Supporters of strong IPRs argue that they will increase investments in R&D and innovation and disseminating it across countries. Detractors...

The 2008 economic crisis has severely reduced the short-term willingness of firms to invest in innovation. But this reduction has not occurred uniformly and a few firms even increased their investment in spite of the adverse macroeconomic environment. This paper, based on the latest three waves...

Are EU Member States converging in terms of their innovative effort? To what extent is the current economic downturn impairing the convergence across the European Union countries in innovation performance? Using macro and micro data, this article shows that the EU Member States have converged in...

This article addresses the impact of the current economic downturn on innovation across Europe. Using micro and macro data we investigate to what extent some structural characteristics of National Systems of innovation, along with demand, affect firms' persistency in terms of innovation...

This article addresses the impact of the current economic downturn on innovation across Europe. Using micro and macro data we investigate to what extent some characteristics of a country affect the reaction of its firms in terms of innovation investment. It emerges that the effects of the...

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) have become ubiquitous in the current debate and have emerged as the key issue of global innovation policy. The ‘Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights’ (TRIPS) Agreement, signed in 1994 as a founding element of the World Trade Organisation,...

Composite synthetic indicators of the technological capabilities of nations have been used ever more frequently over the last few years, creating a sort of Olympic Games medal table of the innovation race. Such measurement tools have been formulated at the macroeconomic level by the European...

The 2008 economic crisis has severely reduced the short-term willingness of firms to invest in innovation. But this reduction has not occurred uniformly and a few firms even increased their investment in spite of the adverse macroeconomic environment. This paper, based on the latest three waves...

This article addresses the impact of the current economic downturn on innovation across Europe. Using micro- and macro-data, we investigate to what extent some structural characteristics of National Systems of Innovation, along with demand, affect firms' persistency in terms of innovation...