Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/129859 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IEHAS Discussion Papers No. MT-DP - 2015/17
Publisher: 
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Economics, Budapest
Abstract: 
Given the economic, societal and environmental relevance of innovation, this paper contrasts various models of innovation, compares how innovation is understood in mainstream economics and evolutionary economics of innovation and juxtaposes the concomitant policy rationales. By discussing two monitoring tools used by the European Commission to assess its member states. innovation performance, it argues that the science-push model of innovation is still highly influential in the EC STI policy circles, in spite of the significance of non-R&D types of knowledge in innovation processes. Then it explores various types of opportunity costs stemming from the persistent high-tech myth, considers possible historical and sociological reasons for its perseverance and discusses policy implications of the systemic view of innovation, with an emphasis on the case of the EU10 countries. Policy conclusions include: i) several policies affect innovation processes and performance, perhaps even more strongly than STI policies, and hence policy goals and tools need to be orchestrated across several policy domains; ii) STI policies should promote learning and knowledge-intensive activities in all sectors, including low- and medium-technology industries and services; iii) analysts and policy-makers need to avoid the trap of paying too much attention to simplifying ranking exercises; iv) new indicators that better reflect the evolutionary processes of learning and innovation would be needed to support analysis and policy-making; v) the choice of an economics paradigm to guide policy evaluation is likely to be decisive.
Subjects: 
Innovation processes
Sources, forms and types of knowledge
Models of innovation
High-tech myth
Low- and medium-technology sectors
Economics paradigms
STI policy rationales
Measurement of innovation
Composite indicators
Scoreboards
League tables
European Commission
Central and Eastern European countries
JEL: 
O31
O38
B52
Y10
ISBN: 
978-615-5447-78-5
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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