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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role that different financial sources and financial specialization have on private research and development (R&D) activity in OECD countries.

The authors developed several panel regressions choosing as a final model a two-way random effects regression to understand which funding sources are related to the R&D expenditure, and how financial specialization has links to the private portion of R&D aggregated expenditure. The authors include data from the years 2000 to 2016 for OECD countries.

The results reinforce the critical role that stock markets have in enhancing private R&D and that bond markets have an inverse relationship with private R&D national expenditures. The authors do not find evidence of a link between bank sources and private R&D. Specialized financial systems (banking or market) support innovation in a better way than a mixed arrangement of those two systems.

The findings of this study have considerable policy implications. Policymakers need to be aware of these results, given that some variables related to financial markets, seems to boost the inputs for R&D. In the long term, this could be a signal that national and regional systems of innovation need a broad view of the factors hampering scientific activity, and also a signal that there are other ways to impact the results of the complex innovation activity through the development of stronger financial systems backing up national systems of innovation.

The authors found that the long discussion about the financial system that a country has to choose to enhance growth with R&D&I may have been misleading the public policy. The findings show that rather than a bank or a stock market financial system, economies looking to boost R&D&I, must specialize in one of the two systems, deepen these and generate the appropriate policies to promote science, technology and innovation using those financial markets.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the news-based economic policy uncertainty (EPU), research and development (R&D) expenditures per capita and innovation outputs.

Data from 1996 to 2015 for 19 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States) are used. The authors apply country and year fixed-effects models for the estimations.

The study findings show that higher levels of EPU are positively associated with higher R&D expenditures per capita as well as innovation outputs (patent applications, patent grants and trademark applications).

This study deepens our understanding on the policy uncertainty–economic activities nexus and expands the literature on uncertainty, which is still at an initial phase of development, leading to generate a variety of open research questions for further investigation and study (Bloom, 2014).

There has not been an empirical investigation on the links between EPU and R&D expenditures and innovation outputs across several countries. The authors address this gap in the literature.

Knowledge capital formation through investment in education has been at the center of the recent economic planning and management. Increase in labor productivity and technological innovation is the outcome of Research and Development (R&D) which is a part of the higher education system of a country. Therefore, to achieve long-run sustainable growth, an economy should dynamize its higher education framework along with strengthening the primary and secondary education to reflect the changing realities. The study examines the interplay between the percentage of educational expenditure in total expenditure and per capita net state domestic product (NSDP) of eight selected metro city states of India during the period 2005–2006 to 2015–2016. The result shows strong positive impact of educational expenditure on per capita NSDP. Therefore, the study suggests to increase the percentage share of educational expenditure in total expenditure.

This paper aims to provide a macro perspective on diffusion structure research, and to investigate the deep structure of international technology diffusion and structural differences between technology diffusion networks. This work also provides an understanding of the nature of globalization. Globalization has highlighted changes in socioeconomics and is reshaping the world. However, when comparing endogenous factors, exogenous factors are complex and demonstrate themselves as network phenomena. These network phenomena compose themselves as neither sole nor independent units. Countries in the global network act interdependently, and heavily influence one another.

This study utilizes social network analysis to investigate the structural configuration of international technology diffusion. This investigation uses a sample of 42 countries over the period from 1997 to 2008. The data set contains two categories: bilateral trade flow and aggregate R&D expenditure. Meanwhile, this study uses block model analysis to reveal a network structure, which can precisely illustrate a global network configuration.

The findings not only illustrate the pattern change of diffusion from a cascade-like to radial-like structure, but also present the structural configuration of technologically advanced countries and their competitive positions.

In the shift to a diffusive structure, time and space are represented in new ways. Therefore, radial-like diffusion structure can provide some technological development approaches for countries interested in exogenous effects for technological growth and managing their international relation.

This study is the first to use a multilateral perspective and longitudinal data to examine a cross-country network structure, to provide an understanding of the nature of globalization, its conceptualization and how influence and effects are transmitted through the interconnectedness of international technology diffusion.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of imported inputs on firms' productivity in selected South Asian economies, namely Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Furthermore, this study explores the complementarity between firms' capabilities and imported inputs in an augmented productivity framework.

A dataset comprising 7117 manufacturing firms of selected South Asian economies was taken from the World Bank for 2013 and 2014. The empirical analysis was based on stochastic frontier models, the ordinary least square method and instrumental variable estimation techniques.

The empirical results show that imported inputs have positive and significant effects on the firms' productivity in the selected countries. Moreover, the study findings demonstrate that firms' capabilities play a complementary role in expanding the firms' production frontier.

The study outcomes suggest that reducing tariffs on imported inputs will enhance the firms' productivity in the selected emerging economies. However, the study further finds that the potential gain of imported inputs is conditional on the firm's capabilities. It implies that firms operating in these countries can improve their performance by allocating more resources to capabilities, such as workers’ training, management and internal R&D effort.

The existing literature on the subject is sceptical about the positive impact of imported inputs on firms' productivity in the case of developing countries. In this regard, the shortage of skilled labour and firms' capabilities are compelling rationales that need to be explored. Thus, the potential contribution of the study lies in explaining the moderating role of firm's capabilities operating in the selected emerging economies in the nexus of imported inputs and productivity.

Innovation has become the engine of economic growth, especially with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This paper aims at studying the association between innovation – measured by gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) – and economic performance – represented by real gross domestic product (GDP) – in MENA region over the period 1996-2016.

The paper uses the panel corrected standard error method to account for heteroskedacity and possible contemporaneous correlation across panels, and the first order autocorrelation within panel for unbalanced datasets.

The study concludes that R&D expenditure is positive and statistically significant in explaining GDP, but their relationship is weak. Specifically, a 10 per cent increase in R&D expenditure raises GDP by 4 per cent. In addition, human capital, labor force and fixed capital accumulation are found positive and statistically significant. These findings highlight on the importance of innovation and education on fostering economic growth, urging MENA governments to further invest in R&D and innovation sector.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the relationship between GERD and GDP in MENA region within the endogenous-growth model framework.

This paper aims to evaluate Slovenian competitiveness by quantitative and by qualitative methods, and tries to explain why some countries develop faster than others.

By observing other economies, it is possible to learn how to improve the development base at home. Many indicators of national competitiveness have been suggested. Broadly speaking, competitiveness can be measured with some indicators: terms of trade, current account balance, per capital income, productivity growth, high‐tech export (percent), expenditure on R&D and openness of economy. In addition, the systematic competitiveness by International Institute of Management Development of World Economic Forum methodology can be measured. Questionnaire indicators give us a more qualitative view on competitiveness. The modern way of measuring national competitiveness is using questionnaires, which allows evaluation of the dynamic evolution of one economy, the qualitative competitiveness and the expectations of the business managers. Managers often evaluate the quality of business environment in which they operate. They also try to forecast the economic situation of the country in the near future. Therefore, the combination of statistical data and indicators from questionnaires is the best way to measure national competitiveness.

Countries with different infrastructures and economic‐policy measures are indirectly competing to attract the investments of multinational companies, or, what is most interesting, profit‐making industries. For small open economy like Slovenia, internationalization at all levels is essential for long‐term economic growth.

Slovenian enterprises neglect certain non‐price factors of competitiveness that constitute the key element in modern competition. Exports by Slovenian enterprises are thus still concentrated on non‐differentiated products and services with lower value added but with an adequate level of quality.

The competitiveness concept is introducing the benchmarking method on the economy level. As it is sometimes impossible to find the best solutions by analyzing only the home country, it is more common to analyze problems of the other countries to find solutions for our own problems. After the EU integration process, it can be seen that the benchmarking process is strongly implemented on the analytical as on the policy level.

The recent European crisis has raised a number of concerns among economists about the persistence of significant productive and competitiveness differences across national economies within the European Union (EU). Such differences can be seen as both a major root cause underlying the crisis and as an important factor explaining the current political difficulties within the EU.

The big divide between core and periphery is taken into account in this chapter, which focuses on the processes of structural transformation in the European periphery. We intend to contribute to a better understanding of structural changes in Europe and of their potential impact on future growth prospects and overall convergence/divergence dynamics.

A comparison of the experiences of two groups of peripheral countries is undertaken, based on a sample of old member states of Southwestern Europe and of new member states of Eastern Europe. A descriptive analysis is made of the trends occurred in the structure of production, employment and trade, examining this evidence in the light of technology and skill-based industrial classifications. Comparisons are made for both the pre and post-crisis periods.

Changes in the economic structure towards more skill- and technology-intensive sectors were relatively modest in Southwest Europe, whereas they increased rapidly in Eastern Europe. Notwithstanding, both groups of countries have experienced a strong deterioration of the growth dynamics after 2008, which seems to reflect the strong emphasis of economic policy on financial market stabilisation and a relative neglect of policies targeted to the recovery of investment and to the reinforcement of exporting capacities.

The solution to overcome economic retardation requires inevitably export-led growth and the building up of a more competitive economy. This, in turn, requires the design of an adequate industrial policy.

The purpose of this paper is to use a variety-expanding growth model embedded in the North–South framework to study the implementation of globally desirable protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the emerging South.

The authors use a variety-expanding growth model with innovation-led economic growth in both North and South. As usual, imitations targeted equally at Northern and Southern innovations only occur in the South, and the authors focus on the design of Southern IPR protection.

Welfare-maximizing degrees of Southern IPR protection are explicitly derived for both North and South. There tends to exist a North–South conflict on the right degree of protection. To resolve this conflict, the Southern government can grant appropriate subsides to support domestic innovators. The authors derive the right rate of innovation subsidies such that the conflict is resolved.

This paper represents the first attempt to deal with the North–South conflict on the degree of Southern IPR protection within the variety-expanding growth model. And the novel perspective is to relax the North–South tension on IPR protection via additionally implementing an appropriate innovation subsidy policy.