Innovation as a Factor of European Economic Dynamics (Empirical Analysis)
The study considers at the macro level the problem of correlation between the dynamics of product and investment, labor productivity and capital labor ratio. The authors tested the hypothesis that economic growth is caused not only by the scale of investment, but also by their quality characteristics and impact of the innovation factor. The researchers proposed the approach to the measurement and evaluation of innovative activities, made calculations for a number of European countries for the period 1995-2007 and classified countries by development type according to the role of innovation factor. There are 3 types of countries: the 1st one is characterized by lack of innovation and creation of its background for achieving good results in later stages of development (UK); the 2nd one is boundary with technologies of base period (Denmark, France, Cyprus, Austria, Italy); and the 3rd one shows the results of innovative activity (Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland). The results related to economic development and evaluation of innovative activity of the new EU members with their relatively weak starting conditions can be of interest for Russia. The study was supported by the RFBR project No. 13-06-00392/13.