The impact innovation on sustainable growth and development in developing countries

Innovation is a historically important concept in both micro and macro economics. Although many definitions of this concept are made, it means new and / or differentiated as a common denominator. One of the most important indicators of innovation is research and development (R&D) activities. Especially developing countries give importance to R&D in order to reach a higher income level and to compete more with developed countries in global markets. However, developing countries fall behind developed countries as they are insufficient in terms of R&D activities. One of the most important goals of developing countries today is to achieve sustainable growth performance. Countries follow the developed countries for this purpose and innovate. However, the question of whether the innovation performance of developing countries affects their economic growth levels is still being debated. In this direction, the aim of the study is to investigate the impact of innovation on sustainable growth and development. The study covers 30 countries in the upper middle and lower middle income groups. In the study in which the method of panel data analysis was used, the data for the period 1995-2018 were used and the data were obtained from the World Bank. In the empirical analysis, GDP per capita was used as an indicator of economic growth, and R&D expenditure data was used as an indicator of innovation. According to the findings obtained, R&D expenditures affect the economic growth positively.