Determinants of policy reforms in the fields of R&D, education and innovation: EU-27 evidence during the Lisbon Decade

This chapter seeks to extend the understanding of the influences that lead to structural reforms in the domain of the “knowledge economy”. In doing so, data on R&D, education and innovation performance are matched with data on reform measures registered in the European Commission’s MICREF database, which systematically records product market reforms adopted by Member States. As a first attempt in this direction,3 this chapter is essentially an empirical investigation into the determinants of policy reform effort in the area of R&D, education and other innovation dimensions. It controls for specific economic factors beyond the control of governments (such as business cycle) as well as some factors endogenous to the political process itself, such as the debt level or the tax burden in the economy. The empirical results can be summarized as follows: (i) there is an evident increase in the attention that European countries pay towards policy initiatives aimed at supporting the knowledge triangle, with a special emphasis on public and private R&D investment; (ii) the Member States’ policy reform effort is responsive to past economic performance and performance in specific areas related to knowledge economy (R&D, education and innovation); (iii) Member States’ policy measures are responsive to general business cycle conditions; and (iv) structural country-specific factors play a role in explaining the propensity of EU Member States to engage in policy initiatives. Among these structural factors, specific characteristics related to the governance of national research and innovation systems seems to highlight the importance of sharing best practices among Member States.

CONTE Andrea; 

2016-09-14

Edward Elgar

JRC84591

978-1-78254-065-6,   

http://www.e-elgar.com/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=15264,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC84591,