Sectoral invariances or distance-from-the-frontier effect among European mid-low tech sectors

This study analyses empirically innovative activity among firms operating in mid-low tech sectors in Germany, Italy and Spain. The aim of the paper is to check –within the same sectors across the three countries– whether technology-related sectoral invariances in innovative patterns prevail or innovative strategies depend instead on the level of technological advancement of each national sector. The former case corresponds to the scenario predicted by the sectoral systems of innovation literature, while the latter is consistent with the distancefrom- the-frontier framework. On one hand the results of the econometric analysis confirm the presence of some cross-country sectoral-specific features of innovation modes, such as the strong association of R&D activity with process innovation and the strong similarities in the identification of the most important sources of information. However the results also show that the elasticity of R&D to sales changes substantially between Germany and the other two countries. Furthermore it is found that brand-new innovation affects positively the level of sales only in Germany and Italy, while in Spain adoption is more effective, thus highlighting the existence of several differences among innovation modes across countries