Comparing firms' triadic patent applications across countries: Is there a gap in terms of R&D effort or a gap in terms of performances?

This paper addresses the question of national differences as regard the number of triadic patents applied for by inventors several OECD countries. The key idea is to determine whether such differences should be attributed to differences in R&D ditures or rather to some other reasons, mainly institutional or behavioural ones. With this aim in view, both a analysis, based on aggregate data for triadic patent counts and R&D expenditures and a micro-economic analysis based on data from three selected sectors are performed. In both cases, the methodological focus is made on the introduction, the and the estimation of a national index of relative efficiency in standard count data models. The main empirical findings are there is a strong heterogeneity in terms of performance among European countries and a strong intra-country heterogeneity sectors. This suggests that, in the field of innovation policies, there is a need for "tailored" solutions reflecting the of each innovation system. Moreover, we show that European countries over-perform the United States in some high-tech tors where the leadership of American firms is traditionally alleged, whereas European firms fail to keep up in more sectors. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.