R&D and Technology Policy in NICs as Learning Processes

This paper presents a dynamic, learning perspective to research and development activity and to policies promoting these activities and technological development more generally. The basic idea is that successful penetration of research and development (R&D) in a newly industrialized country (NIC) context is a process involving extensive learning including collective learning ("learning by others"); multidisciplinary learning (both technoeconomic and managerial/organizational); and learning which is cumulative through time. This is especially so at an early ("infant") phase of diffusion of this process through the economy. A dynamic view of externalities and market failures is presented, one that provides the basis for a catalytic perspective of technological policy. This perspective is based on the distinction between an infant and a mature phase of policy, where massive-flexible-search oriented support in the early phase sets the base for endogenization/routinization of R&D in the economy and for the possibility of drastic reductions in government support for traditional forms of R&D in the later phase.