The importance of innovation in knowledge economy and its effect on growth: Analysis on selected OECD countries

-The concept of the information economy began to gain importance in 1990 and afterwards due to the developments experienced in technology. There are specific indicators of the information economy, which has become an important criterion for countries' development levels. Some of these indicators include investments in information and communication technologies, higher education registered student numbers, internet access numbers and innovation. Innovation, which is an essential element of the information economy, can be seen as the most important building block in becoming an information economy of an country. In general, innovation is an effort by a company or an enterprise to produce a product that is better than its own. Innovation is the most important determinant of the sustainability (permanency) of the firm or business on the market. The economic structure of countries that invest in information, technology and, most importantly, in innovation, will be influenced positively in this way and will create economic growth. In this study, the effect of the innovation on growth, which is regarded as a fundamental element of the information economy, has been researched. Of the 2000-2015 period, it studies the US, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia and Turkey, including 15 R & D expenditure of the OECD countries, researchers counts, patent numbers and annual data of scientific publications are used. Panel Data Regression Analysis was applied as a method. According to the results of the analysis, economic growth which is a dependent variable has been reached as a result of investment in arge expenditures as an independent variable, number of researchers, number of patents and number of scientific publications as positive result.