Measuring Innovation
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There’s one theme that we’ve touched on repeatedly in our Times columns and on this blog, and which we’ll devote considerable space to in SuperFreakonomics : how technological innovation and robust markets tend to fix a lot of problems that seem unsolvable. In the business community, “innovation” is a buzzword of the highest order (so high, in fact, that some people run screaming the moment they hear it mentioned). See, for instance, Fortune ‘s innovation blog . For all the talk, however, there remains the murky issue of how to properly measure innovation. The Department of Commerce, which has begun addressing this challenge , has this to say:
How Can We Measure Innovation? A Freakonomics Quorum - Freakonom
Issues in measuring innovation
Innovation research builds on the analysis of micro level data describing innovative behaviour of individual firms. One increasingly popular type of data are Literature-based Innovation Output (LBIO) data. These are compiled by screening specialist trade journals for new-product announcements. Notwithstanding the substantial advantages, the eligibility of LBIO data for innovation research remains controversial. In this paper the merits of LBIO data are examined by means of comparative analysis.