This paper follows on Therrien and Mohnen (2001). Here, we compare the innovation performance of manufacturing firms in Canada and four European countries - Germany, France, Ireland, and Spain - on the basis of an econometric model that identifies some of the determinants of the probability to innovate and of the intensity of innovation. We estimate jointly a probit for the incidence of innovation and a censored ordered probit for the intensity of innovation. The analysis is performed on the data from Statistics Canada's 1999 Innovation Survey and Eurostat's second Community Innovation Survey.
Due to administrative constraints, data from Europe and Canada cannot be pooled together. From the estimates we compare and disentangle the observed and the expected innovation intensities in Canada and in Europe, using the framework developed by Mairesse and Mohnen (2002).
Canada has a higher proportion of innovating firms but a lower share of innovative sales for its innovating firms. From the two effects combined we expect a typical Canadian firm to have a slightly higher share of innovative sales. The effects of firm size, cooperation in innovation, and government support make Canadian firms slightly more innovative than European firms, whereas the sectoral composition of output, the pressure of competition, the scope of innovation activities, and the novelty of innovation confer a slight advantage to Europe.