New Indicators of Innovation Activity in Economic Growth Models

Our extensive literature review shows that innovations are fundamental to maintaining competitiveness at both micro- and macro-economic levels. In this study, we address how to improve the measurement of innovations and their impact on a country’s competitiveness and economic growth. We provide an overview of indicators used to measure innovations and propose three new ones that are supposed to capture knowledge spillover: The Foreign Knowledge Inflow, Domestic Knowledge Outflow, and General Propensity to Patent. Innovation was proxied by the number of patent applications, which we supplemented with indexes measuring the origin of knowledge and its transfer. We employed the system GMM method on panel data of 56 countries for 2002–2019 to confirm and compare the informational value of standard innovation indicators and our indexes. Implementation of indexes revealed the counteracting impact of patenting on economic growth when the positive effect of innovation creation is weakened by knowledge disclosure. We provide evidence that a low propensity to patent facilitates growth. The impact of foreign knowledge on an economy is dependent on its technological capacity. The infusion of foreign knowledge boosts the growth of fast-growing economies but inhibits the growth of less technologically sophisticated ones. This supports our assumption that when researching the impact of innovations on economic growth, it is crucial to consider additional factors. Hence, index implementation appears to be the correct method.