*Innovation harms econ growth---empirically proven across multiple countries.

The academic literature studying the relationship between innovation and economic growth is extensive. Some articles have focused on the positive relationships between economic and innovation-related dimensions at the firm level, such as between innovation and firm productivity and exports (Cassiman et al. 2010) and between research and development (R&D) and productivity (Tsai and Wang 2004; Zhang et al. 2012). Other articles have focused on the positive relationship between economic growth and innovation at the country level (Castellacci and Natera 2016).

However, not all previous studies have found a positive and significant relationship between innovation and economic growth. For example, Afzal and Gauhar (2020) studied the relationship between financial innovation and economic growth among 164 countries from 1990 to 2017 and found that these variables are negatively and significantly associated. Likewise, Mohamed et al. (2021) found a significant, negative relationship between innovation and long-term Egyptian economic growth. In the same way, Freel and Robson (2004) studied the impacts of business innovation activities and company growth performance in Scotland and Northern England. They found a short-term, negative relationship between product innovation and sales growth or productivity. Correspondingly, Coad et al. (2021) also suggested innovation’s adverse economic impact through excessive patent protection and monopoly powers, harming economic progress and consumer welfare by boosting social inequality.

Similarly, Benavente (2006) found a lack of significant short-run relationship between Chilean companies’ productivity and innovative results or R&D expenditures. Equally, Carvalho and Avellar (2017) found an insignificant relationship between innovation and the productive performance of Brazilian companies. Likewise, Correa (2012) studied the relationship between competition and innovation among US firms and found mixed results: a positive relationship from 1973 to 1982 but no relationship from 1983 to 1994. Correspondingly, Suzuki (2020) proposed a model in which competition and innovation can be either inverted-U-shaped or negatively related. He also showed that strong intellectual property protection does not necessarily improve national innovation. In the same way, Ma et al. (2022) validated the vital role of scientific and technical activities in attaining sustainable economic growth and emphasized the need for nations to synergize their efforts to promote and enhance their scientific potential, incorporate scientific progress into innovative activities, and raise the quality of life of their citizens.

All the previous articles with contradicting results justified the scientific legitimacy of analyzing the relationship between innovation and economic growth again, using a novel global sample of 120 countries with data from 2013 to 2019. Additionally, no previous articles employed generalized linear models and panel-corrected standard error models with reliable results, supporting this study’s original contribution.