The political economy of technological innovation : a change in the debate

Why are some countries more technologically innovative than others? The dominant explanation amongst political-economists is that domestic institutions determine national innovation rates. However, after decades of research, the empirical evidence for this relationship remains equivocal. There are simply many countries with "good" institutions that do not innovate at the technological frontier, and many countries with "bad" institutions that have nonetheless built impressive records of technological progress. Therefore, in this dissertation, in order to probe the sources of variance in national innovation rates, I analyze quantitative data on innovation, various domestic institutions, and four types of international relationships. First, I review the National Innovation Systems literature. Second, I test the Varieties of Capitalism theory of innovation. Third, I ask whether decentralized states are better at technological innovation than centralized states. In each case, I find that there exists little empirical evidence for an aggregate relationship between domestic institutions and technological innovation. That is, although a specific domestic institution or policy might appear to explain a particular instance of innovation, they fail to explain national innovation rates across time and space.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Taylor, Mark Zachary

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael J. Piore.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35289

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35289