The Transfer of Advanced Technology: Recent Trends and Implications for Mexico

Abstract

The creation and use of advanced technology is increasingly central to international economic competitiveness. This is just as true for a newly-industrialized economy like that of Mexico as it is for older industrial powers, like the United States. While the most advanced industrial economies focus on how to best stay on the leading edge of innovation through policies to stimulate the creation of new technology, the resources of more recent entrants into a widening competition in high technology goods are probably best invested in catching up to the leading edge as quickly and efficiently as possible. This paper constructs an overview of the contours of this catching-up process, focusing on the viewpoints of Mexico and the United States. The two countries are locked together by history and geography into a whole complex of economic interactions. The transfer of advanced technology across their common border is only the latest chapter in a deep and sometimes ambiguous relationship. The first sections of this paper put together a framework for viewing issues related to high technology. The economic environment affecting the transfer of technology is detailed with some care.