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When Innovation Does Not Pay Off: Introducing the "European Regional Paradox"

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  • Thanos Fragkandreas

Abstract

In the last few decades, innovation has been widely recognized to be the engine of wealth and prosperity as it intensifies competition and increases productivity, which both in turn lead to significant economic benefits such as higher income per capita and increased employment. However, empirical evidence in this article illustrates that innovation seems not to have paid-off for some of the most innovative regions in Europe, as these regions, despite being highly innovative, grow at a slower pace than their national counterparts, as well as presenting poor economic outcomes such as low income per capita and high unemployment rates. The aim of this article is to communicate this intriguing observation to both innovation scholars and to policy-makers, since its very existence seems to cast doubt not only on one of the most principal assumptions in the field of innovation studies (i.e. innovation as the engine of growth) but also on one of the most fundamental pillars currently underpinning several regional, national and supranational economic policies.

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  • Thanos Fragkandreas, 2013. "When Innovation Does Not Pay Off: Introducing the "European Regional Paradox"," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(12), pages 2078-2086, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:21:y:2013:i:12:p:2078-2086
    DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2012.741566
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David B. Audretsch, 1995. "Innovation and Industry Evolution," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011468, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, Jon Mikel & Aparicio, Juan & Ortiz, Lidia & Carayannis, Elias G. & Grigoroudis, Evangelos, 2021. "The productivity of national innovation systems in Europe: Catching up or falling behind?," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Teemu Makkonen & Timo Mitze, 2019. "Deconstructing the Education-Innovation-Development Nexus in the EU-28 Using Panel Causality and Poolability Tests," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(2), pages 516-549, June.
    3. Jun Chen & Jia Liu, 2021. "Incentive and uncertainty: the simultaneous effects of demand on innovation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7743-7757, September.
    4. Zhang, Runze & Li, Zhijun & Xiao, Chunqu & You, Jiwang, 2023. "New engines of economic growth: How digital currencies lead the way to growth in the era of digital economy," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1597-1617.
    5. Barbero, Javier & Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, Jon Mikel & Zofío, José L., 2021. "Is more always better? On the relevance of decreasing returns to scale on innovation," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    6. Thanos Fragkandreas, 2021. "Innovation Systems and Income Inequality: In Search of Causal Mechanisms," Working Papers 56, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Nov 2021.
    7. Xu, Aiting & Qiu, Keyang & Zhu, Yuhan, 2023. "The measurements and decomposition of innovation inequality: Based on Industry − University − Research perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    8. Edquist, Charles & Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, Jon Mikel, 2020. "Functional procurement for innovation, welfare and the environment," Papers in Innovation Studies 2020/1, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research, revised 19 Jul 2020.
    9. Yu, Haijing & Devece, Caarlos & Martinez, José Manuel Guaita & Xu, Bing, 2021. "An analysis of the paradox in R&D. Insight from a new spatial heterogeneity model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    10. Andrei Coca & Manuela Rozalia Gabor & Irina Olimpia Susanu, 2023. "Do Innovation Metrics Reflect Sustainable Policy Making in Europe? A Comparative Study Case on the Carpathian and Alpine Mountain Regions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-31, March.

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