Why Innovation Does Not Guarantee Productivity

Innovation alone does not guarantee higher productivity. New knowledge must reach firms, become useful in production and be supported by skills, capital and institutional conditions.

The underlying mechanism

The book examines the connections between investment, innovation, industrial learning and regional opportunity. The key is not to celebrate invention as an isolated output but to ask how it becomes productive capability.

Continue in the book

The full argument, evidence and proposed responses are developed in The Wealth of European Nations.