Abstract
This article analyzes the structure of knowledge gaps between the North and South, defining as such the creation of ideas that affect the generation of knowledge and technology for development. We show evidence that there is a strong nucleus of converging causes of different origins that explain these gaps or unequal development structures. On the one hand, these structures and/or gaps come from the innovation system of the countries of the North; and on the other hand, the structural configurations of South America, such as: the weak international insertion of the countries of the South, deindustrialization, asymmetrical international order, and lack of suitable public policies to promote the system of science, technology, and innovation.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
According to Correa (2004), the bilateral investment treaties with intellectual property contents and intellectual property agreements were common in the 80s.
- 3.
According to Art. 27 of the TRIPS, member countries can exclude plants and animals from patentability.
- 4.
“If knowledge were a non-rival good, it would be distributed quickly, imitation would be at almost zero cost, as a consequence less resources would be invested in its production” (Velazco-Fernández et al. 2015: 84).
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There is a similar difference in the investment in secondary education.
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10% of the countries with the most and least wealth had an income higher and lower than 37,500 and 500 (US$), respectively.
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Without China, the Gini coefficient decrease from 0.788 to 0.711 between 1986 and 2013.
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In 2013, the proportion of China’s population represented 19% of the world population.
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Cango, P., Ramos-Martín, J., Falconí, F. (2018). The Regional Political Economy of Knowledge and Environment. In: Vivares, E. (eds) Regionalism, Development and the Post-Commodities Boom in South America. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62551-5_9
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