Innovation Adoption and Productivity Growth: Evidence for Europe

Abstract

This paper provides an empirical verification of the relationship between innovation adoption and productivity growth. After a brief revision of the literature about the concept and main determinants of innovation adoption/diffusion, the paper provides empirical evidence of the above-mentioned relationship through means of descriptive statistics and subsequently, we study the impact that innovation adoption may have on productivity growth through a regression analysis. The analysis is made with the statistical information provided by the Community Innovation Survey in its third and fourth reports, which concern innovative activities carried out between 1998 and 2000 and between 2002 and 2004 respectively. The countries covered are the 25 EU Member States plus Iceland and Norway as well as Turkey.