Experimental Innovation Policy

Albert Bravo-Biosca

NBER Working Paper No. 26273
Issued in September 2019
NBER Program(s):Development Economics, Public Economics, Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

Experimental approaches are increasingly being adopted across many policy fields, but innovation policy has been lagging. This paper reviews the case for policy experimentation in this field, describes the different types of experiments that can be undertaken, discusses some of the unique challenges to the use of experimental approaches in innovation policy, and summarizes some of the emerging lessons, with a focus on randomized trials. The paper concludes describing how at the Innovation Growth Lab we have been working with governments across the OECD to help them overcome the barriers to policy experimentation in order to make their policies more impactful.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w26273

Published: Experimental Innovation Policy, Albert Bravo-Biosca. in Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 20, Lerner and Stern. 2020