On Semi-Industrialized Countries and the Acquisition of Technological Capabilities.

The last decades have witnessed a breaking down of the hitherto quasi-monopoly in industrial and technological development by highly industrialized countries. Man-made changes in comparative advantage due to rapid accumulation of human capital, development of technical institutions, and public policies in support of enterprise development and innovation, have led to the emergence of advanced technical capabilities in a number of semi-industrialized countries. Study of selected instances of their technological achievement show that they cannot be adequately interpreted as necessarily requiring the working of a well integrated national innovation system. They seem to be instead, path, or process, dependent, and determined by the circumstantial convergence of requisite skills, appropriate institutions and supportive public policies.