A GROWTH MODEL FOR THE QUADRUPLE HELIX

We develop a R&D-based growth model with productive public expenditure in order to frame the Quadruple Helix (QH) innovation concept, based on four helices: Academia & Technological Infrastructures, Firms, Government and Civil Society. Our motivation stems from acknowledgment that the relationship between these four helices and their joint impact on growth is in need of a theoretical framework. We aim to emphasise the importance to economic growth of innovation systems structured on these four helices. The introduced model confirms theoretically the notion that increases in: (i) complementarities between distinct productive units, or (ii) in productive government expenditure, lead to higher growth.

GROWTH AND PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

The paper analyzes a multicountry extension of the Barro model of productive public expenditure. In the presence of positive infrastructural externalities between countries, the provision of infrastructure will be inefficiently low if countries do not coordinate. This provides a role for a supranational body, such as the European Union, to coordinate the policies of the individual governments. It is shown how intervention by a supranational body can raise welfare by internalizing the infrastructural externality. Infrastructural externalities increase the importance of tax policy in the growth process and distribute the benefits of taxation across countries.