Eficiencia de la innovación en América Latina. Una aproximación a través del Análisis Envolvente de Datos

The objective of this research is to measure the innovation efficiency of eleven Latin American countries with data for the year 2018, as well as to know which of the factors considered had a greater impact on the behavior of this phenomenon. It is hypothesized that the efficiency in the generation of patent applications by the selected countries is positively determined by their efficiency in seven inputs called Regulatory Environment, Basic Education, Post-Basic Education, Research and Development, General Infrastructure, Investment and Commerce and Competition. To corroborate the above, a measurement was carried out using a radial type Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), output oriented, with constant returns to scale. The results suggest that the highest efficiency was reached by Paraguay, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina; the countries evaluated as the least efficient were Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador and Uruguay.