Ankara University SBF Journal

Abstract

Today, innovation is seen as one of the key solutions that comes to mind for all kind of problems including economic ones. It is argued that future success of all countries, including developed ones, will be determined by the innovative capacity of those countries. It is therefore recommended to all countries on the path of development that they should innovate in areas where they have comperative advantages. The important role of innovation in the progress stories of individual countries makes it very legitimate to recommend the same path to all countries, without making any distincion whether they are developed, developing or underdeveloped. Even certain ways of progress can be valid for all countries individually, at least in theory, it is not clear whether it is still valid if all countries do the same simultaneously. In this article, reasons for this ambiguity are discussed in the context of different initial conditions of countries, biases of innovation and the fallacy of composition.