Are French (Industrial) Firms at the Technology Frontier?

What is a technologically advanced economy? We propose some theoretical elements showing how heterogeneity in the firms' innovation behaviours can be analysed and exploited in order to assess the technological performance of the economy. Three empirical applications using French data are derived from the previous argument. Our results show first that innovation is highly persistent. Moreover benefits (in terms of productivity) resulting from innovation are differentiated according to the initial technological level of firms. Lastly, innovating firms seem to contribute significantly to the economic growth over the recent period.