Contenu du sommaire : Innovation and Finance

The presence of financial derivatives can be a very effective destabilizing factor in economies which are rapidly liberalized and which, especially, have poorly structured and improperly regulated imbalanced derivatives markets, like the emerging market economies, including Brazil in the 1990s. Since Brazil was subject to the rapid and almost complete liberalization of her economy in the 1990s, and had poorly structured imbalanced derivative markets, she was highly vulnerable to the harmful usages of financial derivatives in the 1990s. Although financial derivatives were initially developed for beneficial purposes, such as the handling of risks and volatilities, they turned into channels creating them. This paper aims to analyze and test statistically their potential role in the Brazilian financial crises in the 1990s through a time-series approach. The major findings indicate that they had an increasing impact on crisis pressures of Brazil in the 1990s, both in the short and long term.JEL Codes: F37, G01, G15

Innovation is the source of capitalist accumulation. Schumpeter termed this process “Creative Destruction” and related it to entrepreneurial activities and to the functioning of the monetary and financial system. Recent research on economic development has also placed the emphasis on financial innovations and financial markets. The financial liberalisation era of the 1990s and 2000s is regarded as a growth period and a positive relationship is assumed between financial innovations and entrepreneurial innovations. However, financial innovations provoked an economy-wide financialisation, reduced the share of real entrepreneurial activities and generated systemic crises. The subsequent turmoil hampered the access of innovative projects to stable financial resources. This article maintains that in order to set the economy on a re-industrialisation path, an alternative organisation of financial markets is required. I then suggest some directions for possible relevant recovery policies and argue that an alternative re-industrialisation/de-financialisation process calls for a specific public regulation that should seek to lead financial institutions to finance sustainable innovative activities in order to ensure global recovery and prevent systemic catastrophes.JEL Codes: G18, G20, O31, O38

The concept of duality covers a vast and complex area. This contribution provides a systemic analytical framework for understanding dual technological innovation beyond case studies. The question is to know in which institutional perimeter and according to which organization of the innovation process the dual potential of a technology must be understood. Thus, in parallel with the Defense Industrial and Technological Base DITB concept, for dual technologies, the Dual Innovation System concept would allow a more integrated management between defence innovation policy and industrial policy. The objective is to highlight a complementarity between the two concepts, the first serving to approach, defence as a whole, while the second focuses more specifically on a technical system in order to consider all its applications.JEL Codes: O32

Small agricultural firms have to cope with increasing economic, legal and environmental difficulties. The purpose of the paper is to identify whether there are available research outputs to these challenges, focusing on the Swiss traditional fruit sector. Identification of firms' needs using face-to-face interviews and a focus group allowed us to prioritize innovations. Knowledge and innovation transfer gaps were identified thanks to bibliometric analysis, providing hints for research program orientations. The main sectoral needs were related to varieties like increasing pest and disease resistance, weather sensitivity, and ripening behavior. Knowledge produced by research institutions was partly related to the firms' needs. The study demonstrated a need for better coordination between agricultural stakeholders and researchers. Knowledge must be transferred and shared in the network with greater efficiency by extending interactions and involving stakeholders earlier in the innovation process. However, the search for scientific outputs should include more specificities of the local environment.JEL Codes: O31, O32