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Empirical Evidence Against Varieties of Capitalism's Theory of Technological Innovation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2004

Mark Zachary Taylor
Mark Zachary Taylor
Affiliation:
Mark Zachary Taylor is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He can be reached at mzak@mit.edu.
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Abstract

How can one explain cross-national differences in innovative activity across the industrialized democracies? In this article, I examine the “varieties of capitalism” (VOC) response to this question. VOC theory predicts that societies with liberal-market economies will direct their inventive activity toward radical technological change, while societies with coordinated-market economies will direct their inventive activity toward incremental technological change. I find that these predictions are not supported by the empirical data, and that the evidence offered by VOC proponents depends heavily on the inclusion of a major outlier, the United States, in the class of liberal-market economies. My empirical investigation includes simple patent counts, patents weighted by forward citations, and scholarly publications (both simple counts and citations-weighted). I analyze data covering all of the VOC countries over the course of several decades, little of which reveals the innovative patterns predicted by VOC scholars.For their excellent insights, critiques, and encouragement I gratefully thank Thomas Cusack, Tracy Gabridge, Michael Brewster Hawes, Derek Hill, Daniel K. Johnson, Chappel Lawson, Mark Lewis, Benedicta Marzinotto, Andrew Miller, Michael Piore, Jonathan Rodden, Herman Schwartz, James Snyder, David Soskice, Edward Steinfeld, Scott Stern, Dan Winship, the editors at International Organization, and two anonymous reviewers.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , July 2004 , pp. 601 - 631
Copyright
© 2004 The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press

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