Abstract
The development and diffusion of new technologies is a major aspect of the current transformations in advanced countries. Innovation in products, processes and forms of organization is a critical factor for greater productivity, competitiveness, growth and employment, as indicated by a large number of theoretical and empirical analyses.1
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See Nelson (1981), Baumol et al. (1989), for productivity; Freeman and Soete (1987), for employment; Soete (1981), Hughes (1986), Fagerberg (1983), for international competitiveness; Denison (1967), Fagerberg (1987), for growth rates.
This approach to the analysis of technology has been developed, among others, by Rosenberg (1976, 1982), Nelson and Winter (1982), Freeman (1982), Pavitt (1984), Dosi et al. (1988).
A study of the world’s 800 largest firms, which account for 90% of world trade, estimated that 34% of all trade is intra-firm. This share increases to 43% for the firms with a higher research intensity, and falls to 13% for the low-technology industries (see The Economist, lst March 1986, p. 61). The case of the US exemplifies these processes. Foreign affiliates of US multinational corporations are now responsible for about 20% of all US imports: two thirds of the US trade deficit would disappear if US firms produced at home what they import from their foreign subsidiaries (Faux, (1988)).
Studies of the accelerating pace of technology transfer within firms include Mansfield et al. (1982), and Vernon (1981).
More recent studies of the international integration of large firms’ innovative activities can be found in Cantwell (1989) and Cantwell and Hodson (1990).
A study by the US Office of Technology Assessment based on OECD data found that the rate of import penetration in R&D intensive industries in the US doubled between 1975 and 1980, going from 7.7 to 14.3 per cent. In Germany it increased from 28.4 to 42.5 per cent; in France from 23.3 to 28.8 per cent; in the UK from 31.2 to 44.2 per cent; in Italy from 25.3 to 33.4 per cent. Only in Japan was the increase limited: from 6.4 to 7.9 per cent (Office of Technology Assessment 1988, p. 322).
A major international comparative study on national innovation systems has been carried out by Nelson and associates (Nelson, forthcoming).
See, among others, Baumol et al. (1989). Theprocess of convergence does not, however, include many countries besides the US, Japan, and the most advanced European countries. Greater international technology flows are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for allowing less advanced countries to reach the technology frontier. The conditions which have made it possibile for Europe and Japan to “catch up” are not easily found elsewhere, with the possible exception of a few newly industrial countries of the Pacific. On the contrary, there is some evidence suggesting an increasing technology “gap” between the more advanced and the developing countries.
An example is provided by the new emerging strengths of Japan also in basic research. A 1986 report of the US National Security Council found a Japanese superiority in R&D for semiconductors, industrial automation, computer architecture and telecommunications components. The report concluded that “the conventional model of US technological leadership in basic research followed by more successful Japanese commercial exploitation is no longer accurate in many of the critical technologies targeted by the Japanese” (quoted in Reich 1987, p. 65). The effect of R&D on US-Japanese trade is explored in Audretsch and Yamawaki, 1988.
A 1985 OECD report stated that firms “have not previously cooperated so directly, on such a scale, in planning, financing and carrying out joint R&D” (OECD, 1985, p. 64). Several studies have examined the new pattern of international cooperation among firms in particular fields; see Chesnais (1988), Van Tulder and Junne (1988), Finan et al. (1986), OECD (1985b), Hagedoorn and Schakenraad (1992b).
An additional study of co-authorship patterns can be found in Miquel et al. (1989).
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Archibugi, D., Pianta, M. (1992). Structural Change and International Strategies in Science and Technology. In: The Technological Specialization of Advanced Countries. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7999-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7999-5_2
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