The Art of Economic Catch-up: Barriers, Detours and Leapfrogging in innovation systems,
- Author : Keun Lee
- Journal : Cambridge University Press, 2019 /
Abstract
When the ladder from developing to developed countries is kicked way, this book suggests that latecomers can still catch up with their forerunners by taking detours (e.g., capability building) and flying on a balloon, meaning leapfrogging out of windows of opportunity. In this way, latecomers may overcome the failures in capability and firm size and the barrier of IPR in the North. Digging into the two black boxes of technological and organization innovations in economics, this book derives a development solution for the latecomers that is framed along the catch-up paradox, such that one cannot be able to catch up if s/he just keeps catching up. In other words, eventual catch-up and overtaking require economies to pursue a path that differs from that taken by the forerunners.