IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ocp/rpaeco/pp_08-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Innovation in Africa: Evidence and Implications for Growth and the Transition to High-Income Status

Author

Listed:
  • Emmanuel Pinto Moreira
  • Rishita Mehra

Abstract

For today’s middle-income countries in Africa, innovation is essential to sustain growth and promote the transition to high-income status. This paper begins by providing an in-depth review of the region’s innovation performance during the last three decades. A distinction is made between residents and non-residents, and outcomes at different income levels. Using cross-country regressions, we then study the determinants of innovation and assess the impact of innovation on growth in the region. The analysis shows that the broadband penetration rate (which facilitates the development of knowledge networks) is a highly significant determinant of innovation. In addition, among the three types of intellectual property—patents, trademarks, and industrial design applications—only the last has a positive and significant impact on growth. Based on this analysis, and the broader literature on middle-income traps, we make policy recommendations to promote innovation in terms of both national strategies (with respect, in particular, to protecting intellectual property rights) and regional strategies, with an emphasis on the role of multilateral institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Emmanuel Pinto Moreira & Rishita Mehra, 2022. "Innovation in Africa: Evidence and Implications for Growth and the Transition to High-Income Status," Research papers & Policy papers on Economic Trends and Policies 2246, Policy Center for the New South.
    • Handle: RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pp_08-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.policycenter.ma/sites/default/files/2022-06/PP_08-22_Emmanuel%20Pinto.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, James R. & Martinsson, Gustav & Petersen, Bruce C., 2012. "Do financing constraints matter for R&D?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1512-1529.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2009. "The Economics of Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012634, April.
    3. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt & David Mayer-Foulkes, 2005. "The Effect of Financial Development on Convergence: Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 173-222.
    4. Indermit Gill & Homi Kharas, 2007. "An East Asian Renaissance : Ideas for Economic Growth," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6798.
    5. Peter C. B. Phillips & Donggyu Sul, 2009. "Economic transition and growth," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(7), pages 1153-1185.
    6. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.
    7. Nina Czernich & Oliver Falck & Tobias Kretschmer & Ludger Woessmann, 2011. "Broadband Infrastructure and Economic Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 505-532, May.
    8. Walid Hadhri & Rigas Arvanitis & Hatem M’Henni, 2016. "Determinants of innovation activities in small and open economies: the Lebanese business sector," Journal of Innovation Economics, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(3), pages 77-107.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ocp:rpaper:pp-0822 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Boeing, Philipp & Eberle, Jonathan & Howell, Anthony, 2022. "The impact of China's R&D subsidies on R&D investment, technological upgrading and economic growth," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    3. Glawe, Linda & Wagner, Helmut, 2020. "China in the middle-income trap?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Emanuele Campiglio & Alessandro Spiganti & Anthony Wiskich, 2023. "Clean innovation and heterogeneous financing costs," Working Papers 2023: 07, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    5. Gil, Pedro Mazeda & Iglésias, Gustavo & Guimarães, Luís, 2023. "Endogenous growth and monetary policy: How do interest-rate feedback rules shape nominal and real transitional dynamics?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Pierre-Richard AGENOR, 2016. "Caught in the Middle? The Economics of Middle-Income Traps," Working Papers P142, FERDI.
    7. Reynaldo Senra Hodelin, 2022. "A Schumpeterian growth model on the effect of development banking on growth," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 607-634, May.
    8. Angus C. Chu & Guido Cozzi & Haichao Fan & Shiyuan Pan & Mengbo Zhang, 2020. "Do Stronger Patents Stimulate or Stifle Innovation? The Crucial Role of Financial Development," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(5), pages 1305-1322, August.
    9. Alexeeva-Alexeev, Inna & Mazas-Perez-Oleaga, Cristina, 2024. "Do ICT firms manage R&D differently? Firm-level and macroeconomic effects on corporate R&D investment: Empirical evidence from a multi-countries context," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    10. Yan, Zheming & Du, Keru & Yang, Zhiming & Deng, Min, 2017. "Convergence or divergence? Understanding the global development trend of low-carbon technologies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 499-509.
    11. Pierre-Richard Agénor, 2017. "Caught In The Middle? The Economics Of Middle-Income Traps," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 771-791, July.
    12. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Cambini, Carlo & Gugler, Klaus, 2023. "Economic benefits of high-speed broadband network coverage and service adoption: Evidence from OECD member states," Research Papers 23, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Wiktor Błoch, 2021. "Determinants of the threat of the middle-income trap," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 52(4), pages 339-356.
    14. Cozzi, Guido & Galli, Silvia, 2020. "Counting innovations: Schumpeterian growth in discrete time," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    15. Augier, Laurent & Yin, Chao, 2022. "Financial market economy vs self-financing economy and the role of risk aversion," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 15-28.
    16. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Canuto, Otaviano, 2017. "Access to finance, product innovation and middle-income traps," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 337-355.
    17. Schreiner, Lena & Madlener, Reinhard, 2022. "Investing in power grid infrastructure as a flexibility option: A DSGE assessment for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    18. Kumar, Sanjesh & Singh, Baljeet, 2019. "Barriers to the international diffusion of technological innovations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 74-86.
    19. Laura Barbieri & Daniela Bragoli & Flavia Cortelezzi & Giovanni Marseguerra, 2015. "Public Support to Innovation Strategies," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali dises1509, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    20. Z. Jun Lin & Shengqiang Liu & Fangcheng Sun, 2017. "The Impact of Financing Constraints and Agency Costs on Corporate R&D Investment: Evidence from China," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 3-42, March.
    21. Çağatay Bircan & Ralph De Haas, 2020. "The Limits of Lending? Banks and Technology Adoption across Russia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 536-609.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pp_08-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Policy Center for the New South's Customer service (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ocppcma.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.