Continental, national and sub-national innovation systems: complementarity and economic growth

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relevance of innovation systems to economic growth rates over the last two centuries. The focus is on complementarity (or lack of it) between sub-systems of society and on models of active learning in catching up economies. The paper discusses variations in rates of growth of economic regions and the extent to which variations may be attributed to “innovation systems”. The analysis is applied to Britain in the 18th century, the United States in the second half of the 19th century and the innovation systems of catching up countries in the 20th century.