International Competitiveness of Countries with Catching-up Innovation Systems

Abstract

A catching-up national innovation system (NIS) can be divided into three different subtypes. Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia form one subgroup. The second, slightly different, subtype is represented by Malaysia and Malta. The third subgroup comprises Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. What these three subtypes of catching-up innovation systems have in common is their average innovative capacity and move into higher positions in innovativeness rankings—all are close to the global average. In the last decade, all the ratios used to describe these systems underwent notable changes. This means that these countries are gaining momentum and catching up with global averages. This catching-up process lends its name to this type of innovation systems, and the sharp improvement in the value of indexes induces to seek the causes of this process and point out to what extent it is reflected in the improvement of competitive advantages of national trade. The analyses of the two case studies discussed in this chapter—Poland and Hungary—are driven by the search for an answer to this question.