Innovation and competitiveness: A review

Increasing interest has been shown by governments in maintaining the competitiveness of their economies by the use of policies designed to encourage advances in science and technology, and the adoption of new techniques by, industry. This paper is the result of a literature review and a survey of researchers on the concepts of innovation and competitiveness, the relationships between them and the efficiency of policies to promote them. Those policies are considered in the context of alternative economic perspectives, as is the (rather limited) empirical evidence available. Conclusions are drawn on the current state of the art of innovation policy research.