The Co-evolution of Sectors and National Institutional Set-ups

It has been shown that over a 20 year period of time the OECD countries have converged in terms of their aggregate technological effort, but this trend covers diverging patterns of sectoral innovative activities even for the countries at the forefront of the " convergence club " (Archibugi and Pianta 1994). This evidence supports the relevance of the National Systems of Innovation (NSI) perspective. Moreover it clearly appears that the OECD nations have increased their technological specialization and their sectoral divergence at least over the 1980s. This finding indicates that sectoral technological activities or sectoral systems of innovation play a role in this story. This body of evidence raises the basic theoretical issue of the relationship between national systems of innovation and sectoral systems of innovation. Many problems may be occurring, but it seems plausible to consider that the two dimensions of innovation systems are interdependent (see the Loc Nis issue paper for the May 22-23, 2003, Workshop). The aim of this paper is to provide inputs in to thinking about these possible two-way links. I will therefore set out my own vision of the interactions between the evolution of sectors and national institutional setups. First of all I will set out a particular but operational definition of national system of innovation (namely a structuralist approach of NSI) which emphasizes industrial structure and the sectoral distribution of knowledge. I argue that this framework is relevant for explaining the stylized facts which could be explained on the one hand by National system of innovation and, on the other, by sectoral systems of