Building National and Regional Innovation Systems: Institutions for Economic Development

Following the demise of the Washington Consensus, developing countries are looking for new ideas to guide their development. This innovative book suggests taking seriously some of the findings of evolutionary economics and paying specific attention to the institutions that matter for economic development, particularly those related to science, technology and innovation.

The author highlights how the institutional framework that will allow countries to grow should include universities, government laboratories and policy incentives for human capital and business research and development. He argues that there are no simple policies and no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions, and that the majority of developing countries have not yet found the right combinations of institutions. The book suggests that building successful national and regional innovation systems requires at least one generation of continuous effort, significant trial and error, and a thorough knowledge of the experiences of the OECD countries that built those institutions in the past. It moves on to demonstrate how certain countries such as Canada, Finland and Singapore have succeeded in catching-up and how several others, for example Argentina, Egypt, Mexico and the Philippines, have failed. It then pinpoints the main industrial, science, technology and innovation policies required by developing countries to achieve their goals.