Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

This paper examines the inter-relationship between Innovation Studies, poverty and inequality in the context of a rapidly globalising economy. It begins by summarising the nature and extent of global poverty, inequality and globalisation, and follows this with a disaggregation of different components of inequality. A number of potential causal links between innovation, poverty and inequality are discussed, before we attempt to map the extent to which different streams of Innovation Studies address issues of poverty and inequality. This is followed by a discussion of the nature and direction of causality in this inter-relationship, as a prelude to drawing conclusions for the agenda of individual studies of innovation, for the methodology used to explore the innovation-welfare nexus, and for policy makers concerned with reducing poverty and inequality.