Libro Blanco Vol I en Ingles

TOWARDS A NATIONAL INNOVATION STRATEGY FOR COMPETITIVENESSVOLUME 1All of the above suggests the need for a body targeted at fostering the conviction that investment ininnovation is fundamental for the development of the country as well as the certainty that not carrying outinvestments on time can lead to very high costs, either because it implies a much greater investmentrequirement in the future or because it hampers growth.An adequate balance is needed here between the need to avoid short-sighted public policies and havingthe necessary legitimacy. This means that if the government and society decide, transparently, to opt formeasures that generate faster results, even at the cost of sacrificing future possibilities, they are well withintheir rights. More strictly speaking, dynamic inconsistency does not occur at the level of the main definitions,but instead occurs when paying political costs, for example, when freeing from capture or reformulatingprograms, or when prioritizing the use of resources in slower-maturing innovation programs and sacrificingothers of greater immediate political interest.The failure of the State associated tothe capture of rents occurs whensomeone derives a private benefitfrom some public instrument. Totackle this, it is necessary to identifythe market failures that indicatewhere the intervention of the State isreally required.ii) The failure of the State associated to the capture of rents occurs when a person or group manages todraw a private benefit from some public instrument: in the field of innovation, this may occur for example,when attempting that the State fund activities that could have private appropriability and that, therefore, donot require public funds.The danger of capture is greater in innovation, precisely because the market failures are deeper in thisarea, which leaves plenty of room open for public intervention and for those seeking to draw the greatestbenefit from this action, for which it is very difficult to establish clear and uniform limits. The threat increasesif, as in this case, the system is fragmented and operates based on stagnant compartmentalization, whichnormally implies the duplication of functions and, therefore, greater possibilities of capture, no longer by theuser but instead by the executor of public policies 74 . In this scenario, one of the greatest risks arises from thosewho, tied to a rent-seeking culture, prefer to target their efforts at pressing to maintain the status quo insteadof opening up to competition and innovation.During the strategy debate, this Council has come to the conclusion that, due to an evident lack offoresight, the system tends, additionally, to favour more traditional sectors with a greater weight within theeconomy. Furthermore, the institutional framework tends to be guided by the interests of these sectors and74 The problem here is, above all, of design; therefore, if the review of the system detects the duplication of functions and requires anadjustment to eliminate it, the cost cannot be borne by those who carry out the duplicated duties. A coherent productive role withinthe system should be sought for employees whose functions may not be required anymore, which may even include re-training plans.98