Innovation and Development Around the World

This paper presents a database of indicators of innovative activity around the world since the early 1960s. The data include measures of innovation outcomes as well as variables related to innovation effort. The main indicator of innovation outputs is patents. The main variables related to innovation inputs are investment in research and development (R&D) and technical personnel (engineers, scientists) working in R&D activities. The sources of these data are publicly available (OECD, UNESCO, etc.), yet there have been few attempts at double checking the consistency of these data and digitizing observations dating back to the 1960s.