¿Es rentable «pensar por pensar»? Evidencia sobre innovación en España

The significantly increasing evolution of private basic research in the U.S.A., Europe and Japan suggests a strong association between the capacity for innovation and research activities aimed strictly to work at the forefront of scientific knowledge. This paper explores the possible reasons for this association using a sample of 8,416 companies in the Spanish Technology Innovation Panel. Our results show that basic research enhances the ability of firms to assimilate, integrate and enhance other businesses’ knowledge, thus leading consistently to higher levels of innovation. In addition, the article suggests that the ability to exploit external knowledge can condition the business strategy when deciding to operate in certain environments with more or less developed intellectual property systems. From the standpoint of public policy, results question the support for innovation activities closer to the market to the detriment of other policies with greater capacity to address externalities related to the development of human capital, reducing the uncertainty of investments, addressing information asymmetries between agents or solving the problems inherent in accidental technology spillovers.