Innovation and Finance

To emerge and to be disseminated on markets innovation needs a set of resources, among them individual competences, new knowledge production (ensuing from basic research, from the observation of markets, or from a mix of them), and financial resources. The articles in this issue of Innovations, Journal of Innovation Economics & Management study the link between innovation and finance, both at the micro and macro-economic level, and finance is seen in two main ways: as a resource to fuel the innovation process but also as an innovation itself, thus taking the form of financial innovations (new financial products or new ways of diffusing financing resources, for example mobile banking). This issue shows the “Janus face of finance”, which leads to two contrasting impacts: on the one hand, finance plays a crucial role in supporting innovation emergence and replication in a context of permanent innovation; on the other hand, some financial innovations are considered as levers for economic growth and développement.