Regional patterns of technological development: Perspectives on developing countries in East Asia and Latin America

Abstract

SummaryThis paper uses patent and citation data to reflect upon the patterns of technological change that has occurred in the East Asian and Latin American regions in recent times. Various pieces of evidence drawn from the data suggest that these two regions have experienced different patterns of technological accumulation over the last two decades. Overall, the growth of technology capability across all classes of technology between the countries of the two regions is strikingly different. This has particularly been the case during the decade of the 1990s. Furthermore, there also appears to be sectoral (sub-class) differences in the technology profiles of countries and what we refer to as a regime switch occurred in Asian countries in the 1980s.