The Role of Human and Social Capital for Innovation in Catching-Up Economies

Abstract

This exploratory study investigates how innovative activities are related to human and social capital in the context of catching-up countries facing both latecomer advantages and path dependency. Data on 30 European countries are analyzed, including ten transition countries with communist backgrounds that are considered catching-up countries in this study. The results showed that catching-up economies, which tend to have poorer performance in innovative activities, also tend to have lower levels of human capital and social capital. Increasing institutional trust and encouraging lifelong learning can be considered most important. It also appeared that while smaller catching-up countries benefit from the higher levels of social capital usually observed in smaller countries, the opportunities associated with being large did not seem to be sufficiently exploited in the larger catching-up countries.