National innovative capacity as determinant in sustainable development: a comparison between the BRICS and G7 countries

In the current scenario of economic growth, technological innovation can be used as a promoter of new production alternatives that can be less damaging to nature, which can allow countries to continue to produce without this being considered a threat to society. The main objective of this paper is to analyse the efficiency of the BRICS and of the G7 countries to convert national innovative capacity into economic, environmental and social development, from 2000 to 2008. To this end, we used the window analysis and the triple index of the data envelopment analysis (DEA). This work concluded, considering the variables adopted, that the European countries, especially Italy, France, Brazil and the UK are the most efficient. However, according to the analysis, the USA, China and Russian Federation were the most inefficient.