To Be or Not to Be Innovative: An Exercise in Measurement

38 Pages Posted: 14 Dec 2001 Last revised: 15 Aug 2022

See all articles by Jacques Mairesse

Jacques Mairesse

National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) - Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST); Maastricht University - United Nations and Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Pierre Mohnen

Maastricht University - UNU-MERIT

Date Written: December 2001

Abstract

In this paper, we put forward the idea of an innovation accounting framework and consider two main indicators based on it: expected innovation and innovativeness. The framework is the analogue of the standard framework of economic growth accounting, with innovativeness being a parallel notion to that of (total factor) productivity. We provide an illustration of the idea using data from the European Community Innovation Surveys (CIS1 and CIS2) and measuring innovation by the share of firm innovative sales. We adopt a generalized tobit model of the propensity and intensity of innovation as our accounting framework. We first apply the framework to a comparison of the innovation performance of French manufacturing industries, while also checking the robustness of our estimates to the use of micro- aggregated firm data provided by Eurostat versus the original individual firm data. We also provide an overview of the results of a larger comparison of innovation across seven European countries.

Suggested Citation

Mairesse, Jacques and Mohnen, Pierre, To Be or Not to Be Innovative: An Exercise in Measurement (December 2001). NBER Working Paper No. w8644, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=294083

Jacques Mairesse (Contact Author)

National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) - Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST) ( email )

15 Boulevard Gabriel Peri
Malakoff Cedex, 1 92245
France

Maastricht University - United Nations and Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT)

Keizer Karelplein 19
6211 TC Maastricht
Netherlands

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Pierre Mohnen

Maastricht University - UNU-MERIT ( email )

P.O. Box 616
Maastricht, 6200 MD
Netherlands
31-43-3884464 (Phone)
31-43-3884495 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
101
Abstract Views
1,937
Rank
476,054
PlumX Metrics