Veugelers, Reinhilde, (2016), “The European Union’s growing innovation divide”, Bruegel, 7 April
There is a significant divide between the European Union countries with the greatest capacity to innovate, and those with the least capacity to innovate. The difficult convergence process has been proceeding only very slowly and unevenly, and more recently seems to have come to a halt. A particular weak spot for the EU is corporate investment in research; in this area, the intra-EU divide is growing. As the business sector is responsible for the persistent R&D intensity gap between the EU and the United States and Asia, the persistent failure of lagging EU countries to catch up in this area provides much of the explanation for the EU’s weak performance compared to other economies.
Relevant Posts
- Veugelers, Reinhilde, (2015), “Matching research and innovation policies in EU countries”, Bruegel publications, 22 December
- Kleinknecht, Alfred, (2015), “How ‘Structural Reforms’ Of Labour Markets Harm Innovation”, Social Europe, 20 July