The primary objective of the article is to examine the nexus between inflation, R&D, patents, and economic growth within a group of Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). The examination is conducted in two parts. First, the impact of total R&D expenditures on economic growth is observed, as well as the influence of growth on private and public R&D investments. Second, the conversion from private and public R&D investment to innovation, measured by the number of patents, is observed. Throughout the analysis, economic growth and inflation are representative of macroeconomic stability. The outcomes of the panel auto-regressive distributed lag estimation indicate that total R&D expenditures are essential and positively significant for economic growth in the observed countries. The results also show that output growth has a remarkably positive impact on generating private R&D expenditures. Such an influence is also found, but at a weaker level, in the case of public R&D expenditures. In this part of the analysis, inflation has demonstrated a harmful influence on R&D expenditures. The results of the second part indicate that public and private R&D expenditures, at a significant level, generate innovation activities, while the impact of inflation has proven to be unimportant.
COMMODITY PRICE VOLATILITY, OUTPUT GROWTH AND EXCHANGE RATE DYNAMICS IN THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
