Changes in National Technological Competitiveness: 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1999

Georgia Tech's Technology Policy and Assessment Center, with support from the US National Science Foundation, has been generating High-Tech Indicators (HTI) — measures of national technology-based export competitiveness since 1987. This paper reports the HTI results for 33 nations in 1999 in comparison with those of 1990, 1993 and 1996. HTI includes four 'input indicators' and a key 'output indicator' — technological standing. We construct a new composite input indicator here and examine its predictive capability. Input indicators for 1990 and 1993 show intriguing relationships to 1999 technological standing. We compare the indicators for various groups — leading and emerging Western economies, rapidly developing Asian economies, former Eastern Bloc nations and lagging Latin American countries. The USA presently exhibits a dominant position, but signs strongly point toward increasingly broad-based competition in technology-based products.     

Anticipating the future high-tech competitiveness of nations: Indicators for twenty-eight countries

This article presents some of the major results obtained during the third phase of a continuing research effort to develop and implement national indicators of competitiveness in high technology industries. The first phase, begun in 1987, developed a conceptual model of the processes by which industrializing nations gain access to external technology and technical information, absorb that technology/information effectively, and institutionalize a science-based development and manufacturing capability leading to export-led growth in high technology products. Four “input” or leading indicators of a nation's future capacity (15-year time horizons) to compete in international markets in high technology products were developed, as were three “output” indicators of a nation's current international competitiveness. During this first phase, the seven indicators were applied to data for twenty countries representing a range of regions and extent of industrialization. The second phase used 1990 data on an expanded set of countries to examine in detail the indicators' reliability and validity. The third phase of indicators work (1992–1995): (1) developed seven indicators whose definitions were recommended in our 1991 final report to the Science Indicators Unit of the National Science Foundation, and (2) collected the necessary data (1993) and applied them to generate a set of indicators for 28 countries using these recommended formulations.This article focuses on the input indicators for the 28 countries and compares these 1993 results with those from 1990. We discuss the implications of these results for technology-based development theory and for development policy. A separate, companion article published elsewhere presents the output indicator results.     

Does ecologically unequal exchange occur?

The hypothesis of ecologically unequal exchange posits that low and middle income developing nations maintain an ecological deficit with wealthy developed nations, exporting natural resources and high impact commodities thereby allowing wealthy economies to avoid operating ecologically impactful industries at home. In this survey we assess the footprint of consumption of 187 countries using eight indicators of environmental pressure in order to determine whether or not this phenomenon occurs. We use input–output analysis with a new high resolution global Multi-Region Input–Output table to calculate each trading pair's balance of trade in biophysical terms of: GHG emissions, embodied water, and scarcity-weighted water content, air pollution, threatened species, Human Appropriated Net Primary Productivity, total material flow, and ecological footprint. We test three hypotheses that should be true if ecologically unequal exchange occurs. One: The inter-regional balance of trade in biophysical terms is disproportional to the balance of trade in financial terms. We find this is true, though not strongly so. Two: Exports from developing nations are more ecologically intensive than those from developed nations. We find this is true. Three: High-income nations disproportionately exert ecological impacts in lower income nations. We find this is false: high income nations are mostly exporters, not importers, of biophysical resources.     

能源企业技术创新能力对财务绩效的影响——基于企业规模的门槛效应研究

能源消费和供给的重要性使得政府给予能源企业技术创新更多关注和支持，能源企业经营存在较大风险使得能源企业技术创新能力对财务绩效的影响呈现一定特殊性。以我国能源企业2013-2018年技术创新投入与产出能力指标为样本数据，采用因子分析法和动态面板门槛效应模型，在评价能源企业技术创新能力的基础上，分别研究能源企业技术创新投入和产出能力对财务绩效的影响及企业规模门槛效应。研究结果表明，能源企业的技术创新投入和综合能力对财务绩效的影响存在显著的门槛效应，而产出能力的表现并不显著。研究结果可为国家和能源企业的技术政策制定和创新投入决策提供参考。     

The role of the technology barometer in assessing the performance of the national innovation system

Along with increasing significance of innovation in socio-economic development grows the need to utilize future-oriented knowledge in innovation policy-making. Foresight and road-map exercises are aimed at supporting planning and priority-setting of R&D and have become indispensable elements of policy-making. Besides technological development decision-makers need all-inclusive knowledge of future developments of society, economy and impacts of science and technology. When the worldwide competition is about the attractiveness of innovation systems, such knowledge is important for comparing the innovation performance of nations to other economies. Finland is among the countries improving her position in worldwide performance comparisons since the late 1990s and reached leading nations in early 2000s. This attainment raised national interest and critical debate of the reliability of the data basis and methodologies used in comparisons. In The Finnish Association of Graduate Engineers (TEK) this discussion led to a decision to develop an own comparative exercise together with VTT. In addition to performance analysis based on ex-post indicators the barometer includes the questionnaire of the views and visions of the future development by relevant national actors. The theoretical framework of the barometer is based on the evolution of economies from industrial development phase to sustainable knowledge society. The barometer has been undertaken in 2004, 2005 and 2007, and a wide interest and emerged discussion of barometer proves that a social interest and order exists for the barometer. The article presents the background, methodology and results of technology barometer, discusses its impacts on national discussion, and gives perspectives for the future development of barometer.     

R&D,TECHNOLOGY SPILLOVERS AND STOCK PRICES†

Abstract. Theories of endogenous growth suggest that technological progress is driven by firms’ own R&D effort and knowledge spillovers. Using panel data for US firms over the period from 1990 to 1999 this paper tests the influence on stock prices of technological spillovers through firms’ purchase of intermediate products from other firms. The empirical results show that stock prices are significantly positively affected by knowledge spillovers through the input of intermediate products.     

Technology,the Technology Complex and the Paradox of Technological Determinism

This paper examines the working definitions of the term 'technology' across a range of disciplines such as industrial relations, organizational behaviour, operations management and development economics. The precise 'subdefinition' of technology in use depends on the disciplinary problematic. We develop a conceptual device called the technology complex to reveal the pattern that is observable when a large number of subdefinitions are compared. The technology complex is a list of the distinctive 'elements' that comprise the disciplinary subdefinitions of technology and it orders this list of elements from the 'physical' to the 'cultural'. The technology complex captures the idea that a working definition of technology will be some selection from the elements of the complex. The technology complex also captures the idea that in its most general sense 'technology' is 'knowledge related to artefacts'. We apply the technology complex to the issue of determinism in technological and social change using the examples of aircraft design and robotics. We argue that there is not an 'either—or' issue between the social and the technological influences on change since the terms are not distinct: 'technology' always includes some aspect of the social. We show how what appears to be 'technological determinism' in the examples of aircraft design and robotics use can be understood through the technology complex.     

中国工业的技术选择与技术进步:1985—2003

本文对1985—2003年来中国工业行业的技术选择做了评估,用DEA法计算期间工业行业的技术进步(TFP)及其分解项技术变化与技术效率,对技术选择与技术进步的关系进行理论梳理和实证检验。我们发现和论证了:(1)中国工业部门在1991—1995和1999—2003年间两度有重化工业化趋势,在1993—1998年间发生了加速资本深化,1999年后,资本深化逐年趋缓。不同产权类型的资本产出比、劳动生产率和资本生产率存在很大差异;(2)工业行业在1990—1993年和1999—2003年有明显的技术进步,两个期间的技术进步主要分别归因于技术效率和技术变化;(3)国企比例或垄断程度高的行业在技术变化方面表现突出,但技术效率的退化程度令人堪忧,而竞争性强的行业技术效率改善明显,但技术变化方面表现不佳;(4)中国工业行业的技术选择(资本深化)对技术变化具有Granger促进作用(反之不成立),但技术变化不是期间技术进步的主要方面,以至于资本深化与技术进步间并不存在统计上的稳定关系。     

Structure of Production,Economic Policy and Performance: the case of Japan,the Republic of Korea and the USA

Using input–output tables as well as a number of indices, this paper attempts to ascertain the degree of similarity of the structures of production of Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States. The results indicate that Japanese and Korean economies are more similar than Japanese and US or Korean and US economies. There are two possible explanations for the similarity of the structures of production of Asian nations. First, technology transfer from Japan to Korea may have contributed to the similarity of the prevailing technologies in these nations. Secondly, the active industrial policies of Japanese and Korean governments over the past several decades may have played an important role in the structures and performances of these economies.     

The quality and quantity of bank intermediation and economic growth: evidence from Asia Pacific

We investigate the impact of the quantity and quality of bank intermediation on economic growth across 14 Asia-Pacific economies over 2003–2015. Measures of bank shareholder value efficiency as well as profit and cost efficiency are used as indicators of intermediation quality. We also employ measures of liquidity creation (fat and nonfat) as a proxy for the quantity of bank intermediation. Our main finding is that the quality of bank intermediation (enhanced credit allocation) is a driver of economic growth in developed Asia-Pacific economies, whereas it is the quantity of bank intermediation (capital accumulation) that positively influences growth in developing nations. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that policymakers in developed nations should concentrate their efforts on reforms that enhance bank efficiency. Second, reforms that stimulate capital accumulation should be encouraged in developing economies because this is the main channel that spurs economic growth.     

Entrepreneurial Skills,Technological Progress,and Firm Growth*

Using cross-country establishment-level data, I show that employment profiles over a firm's life cycle are flatter in fast-growing economies than in slow-growing economies. The difference in average employment over the firm's life cycle increases with plant age. I propose a frictionless overlapping-generations model with exogenous technological progress. Firm productivity also depends on entrepreneurs’ skills. Entrepreneurs can increase their skills over their life cycle, but the growth of the vintage component of younger cohorts’ skills is higher in fast-growing economies than in slow-growing economies. This model is able to explain most of the differences observed in the sample between fast-growing and slow-growing economies.     

Investment-Specific Technical Change in the United States (1947–2000): Measurement and Macroeconomic Consequences

By extrapolating Gordon's measures of the quality bias in the official price indexes, we construct quality-adjusted price indexes for 24 types of equipment and software (E&S) from 1947 to 2000 and use them to measure technical change at the aggregate and at the industry level. Technological improvement in E&S accounts for an important fraction of postwar GDP growth and plays a key role in the productivity resurgence of the 1990s. Driving this finding is 4% annual growth in the quality of E&S in the postwar period and more than 6% annual growth in the 1990s. The acceleration in the 1990s occurred in every industry, consistent with the idea that information technology represents a general-purpose technology. Furthermore, we measure for the aggregate economy and different sectors the “technological gap”: how much more productive new machines are compared to the average machine. We show that the technological gap explains the dynamics of investment in new technologies and the returns to human capital, consistent with the Nelson–Phelps conjecture. Since the technological gap continues to increase—it more than doubled in the past 20 years—our evidence supports the view that at least some of the recent increase in productivity growth is sustainable. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D24, O47.     

Knowledge positions in high-tech markets: Trajectories,standards, strategies and true innovators

Essential patents refer to patents that are indispensable in order to make any product that complies with a technological standard. Portfolios of essential patents have often been used to indicate the strategic value of a firm's knowledge. We propose a range of alternative indicators based on a firm's position in patent citation network. Using a historical narrative and the actual licencing payments for the 3G W-CDMA standard in mobile telecommunications as a reference, we find that our alternative indicators provide better indicators for firms' knowledge positions and their long-term impact on technological change. Our proposed indicators can also be applied in markets that are not based on standards, and may not only be valuable to scholars but also to practitioners. Our findings also raise some concern over technology inclusion processes at standards bodies, and we recommend policy makers to consider our proposed method in order to critically look at these processes.     

Firm innovativeness and work-life balance

Assessing firms’ innovativeness is not an easy task. The literature recognises a number of innovativeness indicators. Most of them are technology-based indicators which perform well in high-tech industries but might be ineffective in other industries where patenting is not usual or in which R&D budgets are low or not formalised. In this paper, we critically review previous innovativeness indicators and we propose a new approach to assess firm innovativeness that is based not on the role of technology but on that of people. This new approach focuses on the existence of work-life balance benefits that are connected with motivation, engagement and creativity in the workplace. We argue that this could be an effective complementary means to assess the innovativeness of firms. It could be combined with previously used indicators and might have considerable advantages such as their suitability for application in any kind of firm regardless of its technological profile.     

Technological collaboration: problems and pitfalls

There is an increasing trend for interconnections between all nations of the world owing to the widespread globalization of industrial production, inputs sourcing and outputs marketing. A further reason is the raised awareness of global consequences, resulting from natural resources depletion and apparently localized environmental degradation activities by industries. Much of this ever-growing and complex interdependence has been possible as a result of a host of unprecedented technologial achievements in the past few deades, which have enabled industrial enterprises in developed countries to accomplish an increased degree of flexibility, through automated manufacturing, to combine economies of sale, through process standardization, with economies of scope, through product differentiation, and to acheive quicker response times to customers7apos; prefernces and market demands. Simultaneously, in most developing countries, there is also an observable undercurrent of deregulation, privatization or corporatization, and open international market competition for industrial development. In this present era of new internationalism, technology management has become one of the main strategic priorities, because it provides the vital factor underpinning the survival and prosperity of industrial enterprises everywhere. Hence, given the recognition that the key competitive advantage in the international market-place nowadays is the ability of an enterprise continuously to introduce technological innovations faster than others, the need for endogenous technology capacity building can hardly be overmphasized. This paper presents a general framework for the development of a set of technology indicators which could be useful for assesing industrial investment projects funded by an international or national development finance institutino. The framework attempts to integrate business and technology strategies particularly in the context of developing countries. Starting with consideration of the unique characteristics of technolgoy at the firm level, and using a systems analysis approach to the market structure, possible strategic mixed are determined by considering four business stratetgies—price, value, niche and green leadership—and four technology strategies—technology leader, follower, exploiter and extender. The necessary considerations for a technological capability enhancement and palusible technology strategy rogression path are also discussed for different development conditions. The analytical measures presented in this paper are focused on such important aspects as the degree of technology component sophistication, the level of technology capability advancement, the status of technology infrasturcture building, and the dynamism of technology climate, all of which could be used for investment project review and appraisal undertaken by iunternational and national development finance institutions.     

Rethinking a National Innovation System: The Small Country as 'SME'

Most debates and discussions regarding trends towards globalization and localization, occur in the over-arching context of the knowledge economy, and focus on the impact of these trends on innovation and competitiveness in the 'Triad' of Europe, Japan and the USA. However, in the knowledge economy, competitiveness is increasingly based upon access to knowledge, in the form of skills and capabilities, wherever it is located in the world including the smaller industrialized countries. This paper extends the discussion of the impacts of globalization and localization to encompass other nations and their 'national innovation systems'. Policy underpinning national systems to encourage innovation is increasingly being called into question by the general move towards globalization and localization. Multi-national enterprises (MNEs) and localized clusters in the emerging technologies determine and control technological paths beyond and through national borders. Small industrialized nations which have neither a broad technological base, extensive science and technology infrastructure or resources, nor MNEs based in the country, run the risk of being marginalized when competing globally, through an inability to become involved in these international economic networks. A traditional policy response by small countries to the impact of globalization is to metaphorically 'batten down the hatches' against the invasion of MNEs and the exploitation of local resources. However, an exploration of the drivers of both globalization and localization in the knowledge economy, and the observed impacts of globalization on New Zealand, suggests that a suitable strategy for small nations might be the reverse scenario. By using the analogy of the small country as a small and medium sized enterprise (SME) in the global economy dominated by large nations and MNEs, SME advantages and disadvantages are mapped onto potential small country advantages and disadvantages. The simile is extended to propose a small-country strategy based on exploiting the documented advantages of SMEs, such as flexibility and use of external networks, for an outward-looking, supplier-orientated innovation policy. Such a policy has to be designed for rapid communication and flexibility, and has to encourage committed technological accumulation and networking, to maximize national absorptive and transformative capacities.     

Private Wealth in a Developing Country:Evidence from South Africa

The point of departure of Piketty's influential Capital in the Twenty‐First Century (2014) was the dramatic growth of private wealth‐income ratios in advanced economies between 1970 and 2010. Using official balance sheet data for South Africa—the first country to publish such data in the developing world—, this paper examines to what extent this re‐emergence of private wealth was also experienced in the developing‐country context. First, we find that the South African current wealth‐income ratio is very close to its 1975 level, and much lower than those of Piketty's sample of advanced economies. Second, we show that the discrepancy is explained not only by South Africa's relatively low savings rates, but also by the reduction of wealth before and during the transition to democracy in the 1990s. Since then, private wealth recovered significantly, but the U‐shaped relationship does not support the argument that there is a clear correlation between the capital‐income ratio and capital share.     

The technological capabilities of nations: The state of the art of synthetic indicators

Composite synthetic indicators of the technological capabilities of nations have been used more frequently over the last years becoming a sort of Olympic medal table of the innovation race. The European Commission, specialised United Nations Agencies, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and individual scholars have developed several of these measurement tools at macroeconomic level. All these indicators are based on a variety of statistical sources in order to capture the multidimensional nature of technological change. This paper reviews these various exercises and: i) it brings into light the explicit and implicit assumptions on the nature of technological change; ii) it discusses their pros and cons; and iii) it explores the consistency among the results achieved. Most of the final rankings at the country level are fairly consistent, but significant discrepancies for some nations emerge. The value of synthetic indicators of technological capabilities for public policy, company strategies and economic studies is finally discussed.     

Technology-based environmental health risks in developing nations

This paper addresses two questions: 1) To what extent are developing nations vulnerable to technology- related environmental health risks? 2) To what extent does the export of hazardous technologies and products contribute to overall levels of environmental health risk in developing nations? The paper focuses on three major types of environmental health risks: the failure of large-scale technological systems; the use or misuse of consumer goods, mechanical devices, and chemicals; and industrial emissions of toxic substances. In addition, three categories of hazardous exports are examined: hazardous products (e.g., pesticides), hazardous production processes (e.g., asbestos processing), and hazardous wastes (e.g., chemical and radioactive waste). The paper concludes that technology-based environmental health risks pose a significant public health problem in most developing nations, even when compared to much larger public health problems such as tropical and gastrointestinal diseases. Technology-based risks are growing in number and frequency. If developing and developed nations continue their current policies, these risks will grow at a significantly greater rate.