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Meister, Christoph; Verspagen, Bart; Wolff, Guntram B. --- "European Productivity Gaps: Is R & D the Solution?" [2006] ELECD 120; in Mundschenk, Susanne; Stierle, H. Michael; Stierle-von Schütz, Ulrike; Traistaru-Siedschlag, Iulia (eds), "Competitiveness and Growth in Europe" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Competitiveness and Growth in Europe

Editor(s): Mundschenk, Susanne; Stierle, H. Michael; Stierle-von Schütz, Ulrike; Traistaru-Siedschlag, Iulia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426620

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: European Productivity Gaps: Is R & D the Solution?

Author(s): Meister, Christoph; Verspagen, Bart; Wolff, Guntram B.

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

8. European Productivity Gaps: Is R&D
the Solution?
Christoph Meister and Bart Verspagen*

8.1 INTRODUCTION

Industrialization, and the association between technological advance and
economic growth, brought Europe world economic leadership in the 19th
century. However, in the course of the 20th century, European leadership was
lost to the United States, as well as a number of dynamic Asian economies, of
which Japan was the first to emerge in the process of modern economic
growth. This loss of European leadership is commonly associated with
another major technological change: the rise of the mass production system
in the United States (for example, David, 1975).
The process of European integration, started after the Second World War
primarily as a way of achieving political stability and peace, became a major
force towards the realization of economies of scale in the European
economies, and hence as a way for Europe to benefit more than it had done
before from the mass production system. This had its highpoint in the
realization of the `Europe 1992' programme, which created a single
European market, without limitations for the free trade of goods and services
or the free mobility of people (Tsoukalis, 1997).
As a result of this and other factors related to the diffusion of technology,
Europe was able to catch-up to the United States over the long postwar
period (for example, Abramovitz, 1979, Nelson and Wright, 1992, Pavitt and
Soete, 1982), and close some of the productivity gap that had emerged in the
first ...