Developing Countries as Exporters of Industrial Technology

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary attempt to describe and assess the emergence of domestic enterprises in the Third World as exporters of capital and technology. The evidence, while scattered and incomplete, points to a clear trend: the more industrialised of the developing countries have experienced a considerable measure of technological progress in recent years, and have now developed the capability to generate and transfer a large range of industrial technologies. This has important implications for policies in respect of technological development and transfer in developing countries. It also has major implications for conventional theories about the role of developing countries in the international division of innovative effort and industrial skills, and so about their long-term comparative advantage in trade and production.

This paper was presented to seminars at the Institut fiir Weltwirtschaft, Kiel, and the Science Policy Research Unit, Sussex; I am grateful to the participants for comments. I would also like to acknowledge information provided by Prem Jha, Surojit Ghosh, Jorge Katz, Isabel Molina and Rustum Lalkaka.