Beyond Brexit’s uncertainty: the foreseeable Britain’s innovative stagnation
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes that determine the UK’s civilian research and development (R&D) expenditure to forecast its possible evolution in a post-Brexit scenario.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use the Johansen’s co-integration analysis for time series.
Findings
The authors find a co-integration relationship between R&D and variables such as exports, military expenditure, patents, EU GDP per capita and USA GDP per capita. The authors also observed a stagnation in the foreseen R&D expenditure over the next five years.
Research limitations/implications
The authors warned that the results can only be viewed as a glance into the understanding of the complex elements that undergird the UK’s civilian, scientific and technological policy-making. But the authors see them as an interesting starting point for scrutinizing current shortcomings in policy-making, while providing clues for corrective action that would otherwise lead the UK to a structural crisis in its economic performance.
Originality/value
This study constitutes a first attempt to account for the loss of the UK’s innovative influence all over the world.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors of this paper have not made their research data set openly available. Any enquiries regarding the data set can be directed to the corresponding author.
Citation
Padilla, A.J. and Garrido, A. (2018), "Beyond Brexit’s uncertainty: the foreseeable Britain’s innovative stagnation", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 45 No. 4, pp. 773-790. https://doi.org/10.1108/JES-06-2017-0166
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited