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Based on the author's keynote talk at the ERF's 25th anniversary conference in Kuwait City (March 10–12, 2019), this paper outlines the research and policy dimensions of the fast-rising intangibles economy. The key features of such economic structures are – the centrality of (mostly proprietary) intellectual property; high upfront fronts for firms but near-zero marginal costs of production if successful; first-mover advantage especially if backed up by standard-setting; and handsome rewards for strategic behavior. There is no single route to success in such a world; in fact many successful countries have had ex ante daunting challenges not unknown among ERF countries. The ethos that drives the ERF has never been more essential than it is today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding that Innovation is a major determinant of economic growth, this paper is investigating how to foster Innovation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region given the institutional deficiencies suffered in many of its countries. More specifically, this paper is trying to find out how State-Business Relations (SBR) have contributed to Innovation capacities of the MENA. It also investigates whether SBR have counteracted some of the region's institutional deficiencies which hinder Innovation. While doing this, this paper differentiates between formal SBR (e.g. public private dialogues) and informal SBR (relations based on family, ethnic or political connections), and puts more theoretical emphasis on the National Innovation System (NIS) approach for fostering innovation. It uses regression analysis and provides three relatively (Innovation-wise) advanced non-Gulf MENA countries as examples for the sake of enriching the discussion through a comparative analysis; these are: Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. Using various multivariate panel OLS regressions, various important findings are obtained. The results suggest that stronger Business Associations, formal SBR and comprehensive institutional reform are needed for fostering Innovation in the MENA region. Even if Cronyism and crony-based informal SBR seem to provide a functional allocative mechanism counteracting some institutional deficiencies, yet, Cronyism do more harm than good to Innovation. Hence, institutional reform in the MENA region should also place more emphasis on eradicating Cronyism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]