| Abstract: | Attention is focused on technological change and attendant learning processes in the more industrialized Third World countries. The importance of relatively simple learning processes is stressed and the conditions necessary for facilitating more complex forms of learning - particularly protection and promotion - are examined. Here it is shown that the capital goods sector is of central importance. The case-study material deals with the machine- producing sector in Hong Kong, chosen as the representative case of free trade and minimal government intervention, and comparison is made with learning processes in a number of other more industrialized Third World Countries including India, Argentina and Taiwan. In the final section the implications of the discussion of learning for theories and techniques of investment allocation - including social cost-benefit analysis, the effective rate of protection and the related domestic cost of foreign exchange - are examined. |
