National Innovation Performance and Selected Indicators of the Five Ps of Sustainable Development: Evidence from Developed and Emerging Economies

This study examines whether annual changes in national innovation performance are associated, within the same year, with changes in or levels of five selected indicators aligned with the sustainable development pillars of People, Planet, Prosperity, Partnership, and Peace, and whether these indicator-level associations differ between developed and emerging economies. The analysis uses a balanced panel of 20 countries from 2014 to 2024 and applies two-way fixed-effects models with country and year fixed effects and country-clustered robust standard errors. Each pillar is operationalized using one observable indicator; consequently, the analysis provides an indicator-based assessment rather than a comprehensive measurement of the Five Ps. The baseline results provide no evidence of systematic contemporaneous associations, as the change in the Global Innovation Index is statistically insignificant across all five models. The one-year-lagged change in innovation is also statistically insignificant in all five specifications, indicating that the central finding remains unchanged after allowing for a short delay. The interaction analysis identifies a significant difference between developed and emerging economies for the indicator aligned with People, although the total association for emerging economies remains statistically insignificant. A weakly significant group difference is found for Partnership, while no significant differences are identified for Prosperity, Planet, or Peace. The demographic and macroeconomic control variables are associated with some of the selected outcomes. Overall, annual changes in aggregate national innovation performance are not systematically associated with contemporaneous or one-year-delayed movements in the selected outcomes. These findings represent conditional associations rather than causal effects.