ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that "Relative effectiveness of national systems of finance, investment and innovation: a review of the literature and a proposal for a comparative approach" describes the asymmetric information problem between investors and financiers. It proposes various theoretical and empirical contributions that, taken together, allow an evaluation of the relative effectiveness of some of the most important country systems such as Japan, the United Kingdom and Italy. The book shows that the type of contributions seem not to solve interpretational ambiguities related to the endogeneity problem and to the direction of the causality links between finance and innovation, or the monetary and the real sector. The book discusses some statistical biases that may arise because of reverse causation-feedback effects from technology to finance at firm level and at country level.
