National innovation systems, capabilities and economic development

This paper focuses on the role of capabilities in economic development. In recent years, the quality and availability of data on different aspects of development have improved, and this provides new opportunities for investigating the reasons behind the large differences in economic development. Using factor analysis on data for 25 indicators and 115 countries between 1992 and 2004, we identify four different types of “capabilities”: the development of the “innovation system”, the quality of “governance”, the character of the “political system” and the degree of “openness” of the economy. Innovation systems and governance are shown to be of particular importance for economic development.