Persistence in innovation is very important for national and firm growth. This paper\r\ncontributes to the study of innovation persistence at firm level, focusing on Greece. Empirical\r\nresearch uses patent and survey data for this purpose. In this context, innovation persistence is\r\nexamined for a sample of 300 Greek firms. Innovation activities are measured through related\r\npatents and persistence is determined by the number of patents that each firm has developed\r\nduring the period 1988-2010. The analysis focuses on the main firm features behind innovation\r\npersistence. Results show that innovation is persistent, as nearly half of firms patent more than\r\nonce and for subsequent years during the whole period of analysis. The phenomenon of\r\ninnovation persistence is more obvious among a total number of 30 firms, the so-called ââ?¬Å?heavy\r\npersistent innovatorsââ?¬Â. Results show that these firms are involved in different economic\r\nactivities at 2-digit level of analysis, have a small size based on their total number of employees,\r\nare characterized by different export shares, develop relatively many technologies based on the\r\ntechnological content of their patents and these new technologies are not usually related to\r\ntheir main production line. However, the analysis also confirms that there are inter-sectoral\r\ndifferences, implying that firm and technology-specific factors are important. The examination\r\nof firm-level innovation persistence could have clear implications for both innovation policy\r\nand the understanding of long-term industry dynamics. Especially now that Greece has started\r\ndiscussing restructuring its economy and re-planning its innovation policy, this paper could\r\ncontribute to this discussion.
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