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(NAS Colloquium) Science, Technology and the Economy (1996) / Chapter Skim
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National policies for technical change: Where are the increasing returns to economic research?
Pages 39-46

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From page 39...
... KEITH PAVITT Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9RF, United Kingdom ABSTRACT Improvements over the past 30 years in statistical data, analysis, and related theory have strengthened the basis for science and technology policy by confirming the importance of technical change in national economic performance. But two important features of scientific and technological activities in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries are still not addressed adequately in mainstream economics: (i)
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From page 40...
... This should be perplexing even discouraging to the new growth theorists who give central importance to policies to stimulate technological spillovers, where public support to basic research should therefore be one of the main policy instruments to promote technical change. Yet the experiences of Germany and Japan, especially when compared with the opposite experience of the United Kingdom, suggest that the causal linkages run the other way not from basic research to technical change, but from technical change to basic research.
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From page 41...
... Uneven Technological Development Amongst Countries Evidence. Empirical studies have shown that technological activities financed by business firms largely determine the capacity of firms and countries both to exploit the benefits of local basic research and to imitate technological applications originally developed elsewhere (11, 24~.
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From page 42...
... level in the early to mid-1970s (19~. At least until 1989, they were forging ahead, which could have disquieting implications for future international patterns of economic growth, especially since there are also signs of the end of productivity convergence amongst the OECD countries (see, for example, ref.
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From page 43...
... Needless the say, these trends will be reinforced by explicit or implicit policy models that advocate "sticking to existing comparative advantage," or "reinforcing existing competencies." The Measurement of Software Technology The institutional and national characteristics required to exploit emerging technological opportunities depend on the nature and locus of these opportunities. Our apparatus for measuring and analyzing technological activities is becoming Table 5.
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From page 44...
... Sci. USA 93 (1996J Assumptions on the nature of useful knowledge Subject Codified information Tacit know-how International Free riders Japan's and Germany's better technological performance than United States and United Kingdom with less basic research Small impact of basic research on patenting Large business investment in published basic research Strengthen intellectual property rights; restrict international diffusion More spillovers by linking basic research to application Reduce public funding of basic research Public relations and conspicuous intellectual consumption Strengthen local and international networks Increase business investment in technological activities Stress unmeasured benefits of basic research A necessary investment in signals to the academic research community obsolete, since the conventional R&D statistics do not deal adequately with software technology, to which we now turn.
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From page 45...
... Software Technology. Although R&D statistics have been an invaluable source of information for policy debate, imple mentation, and analysis, they have always had a bias toward the technological activities of large firms compared with small ones and toward electrical and chemical technologies com pared with mechanical engineering.
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From page 46...
... 12700 Colloquium Paper: Pavitt 46. Statistics Canada (1996)
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Key Terms

  • technological activities
  • software technology
  • international differences
  • public subsidy
  • oecd countries

  • technological development
  • solve complex
  • uneven technological
  • technological application
  • economic performance

  • persistent international
  • economic importance
  • international diffusion
  • private firms
  • human design

  • business investment
  • human capital
  • central importance
  • complex technological
  • technological opportunities

  • technological progress
  • social research
  • research skills
  • international patterns
  • japanese firms

  • related activities
  • research unit
  • national policies
  • public support
  • resource allocations


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