Seminar \u201cInnovation activities in the European Union: Borrowing ideas from the firm productivity literature to build a macro-model of innovation\u201d, Dr. Jes\u00fas L\u00f3pez-Rodr\u00edguez, Professor of University of Coru\u00f1a, 21 de mayo de 2015<\/h2>\n

Imparted by\u00a0Dr. Jes\u00fas L\u00f3pez-Rodr\u00edguez, Professor of University of Coru\u00f1a<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although non-R&D innovation activities account for a significant portion of innovation efforts\u00a0carried out across very heterogeneous economies in Europe, how to incorporate them in to economic models is not always straightforward. For instance, the traditional macro approach to estimating the determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) does not handle them well. To counter these problems, this paper proposes applying an augmented macro-theoretical model to estimate the determinants of TFP by jointly considering the effects of R&D and the impact of non-R&D innovation activities on the productivity levels. Estimations from a model of a sample of EU-26 countries covering the period 2004-2008 show that the distinction between R&D and non-R&D effects is significant for a number of different issues. First, the results show a sizable impact on TFP growth, as the impact of R&D is twice that of non-R&D. Second, absorptive capacity is only linked to R&D endowments. And third, the two types of endowments cannot strictly been seen as complementary, at least for the case of countries with high R&D intensities or high non-R&D intensities.<\/p>\n\n\t\t