The diffusion/adoption of innovation in the internal market

The main aim of the present study is to analyze the drivers of innovation adoption by (i) developing proper measures able to proxy for innovation adoption and internal market regulations, (ii) identifying the channels through which innovation adoption takes place and (iii) assessing the main determinants of this adoption process within the internal market. An original model is derived from the theoretical literature on innovation diffusion. Results show that the impact of the transmission channels on innovation adoption is especially important for cooperation, leaving trade and competition as apparently minor channels of innovation diffusion (and especially depending on the type of innovation adoption under examination). The overall result argues that more cooperation across firms and countries is going to be beneficial to the process of innovation adoption.