Understanding the diversity of cooperation on innovation across countries: Multilevel evidence from Europe

Much has been written about innovation cooperation. But little research has been done to explain national differences thereof. Using macro and micro evidence from the fourth Community Innovation Survey, we econometrically investigate the extent to which national framework conditions account for the propensity of firms to cooperate on innovation at home and abroad. The results indicate strong differences across countries in the latter. Firms operating in countries with less developed research infrastructure are shown to be more likely to cooperate with foreign partners, hence supporting the thesis that in this context the foreign linkages tend to be diasporic. Size and openness of the economy matters too. But characteristics of firms that explain cooperation have not been found to differ much by country. In this respect, the results draw attention to limits of the existing micro datasets on innovation cooperation.