One could hardly overstate the importance of economic growth and innovationas the engine of continuous improvement in the quality of life and wellbeing.This dissertation seeks to improve our understanding of factors impactingon economic growth and the process of innovating.Chapter 1 underscores that exploring the relationship between competitionand innovation requires consistency in the way innovation is measured andproxied. It shows that a failure to do so can lead to conflicting conclusions onhow competition affects innovation.Chapter 2 explores the literature on the relationship between businesscycles and innovation to argue that existing evidence is conflicting and impliesthat research and development (R&D) activities respond positively to downturnsat the level of individual firms (i.e. are countercyclical) but negatively at that ofsectors and economies (i.e. are procyclical). The chapter explains this regularitythrough the procyclicality of fluctuations in the number of R&D performers,which offsets the countercyclicality of individual R&D profiles and makes it lookprocyclical at the aggregate level.Chapter 3 documents and analyses the positive link between the strengthof intersectoral connections within an economy, and its growth. To explain thisregularity, it develops a tractable theoretical framework whereby tighter connectionsbring about stronger propagation downstream of productivity growthepisodes in individual firms and sectors. Analysing the framework yields starktestable predictions on the most growth-enhancing structure of the intersectorallinkage.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
