Understanding the Drivers of National Innovative Capacity

Motivated by R&D differences across countries, we evaluates the determinants of country-level international patenting. Our framework is built on the concept of national innovative capacity. Our results suggest that (a) patenting is characterized by a small but nuanced set of observable economic factors which may be affected by public policy and (b) the OECD has experienced substantial convergence in natinoal innovative capacity over the past quarter century.