Research On Technological Catching-up Of Latecomer Economies

The catching-up and being caught-up between frontier and latecomer economies appear from time to time in the history.That is to say,the countries or regions that were once unknown may catch up from behind,while the ones that were thriving and prosperous may someday be on the wane.According to the theory of endogenous growth,the economic gap can be attributed to the gap of technological level,so the catching-up or surpassing from latecomer to frontier economies is essentially the catching-up or surpassing of technology.There is a possibility that the technological developing level and position of latecomer and frontier economies could be alternate,which is due to the relative speed of technological progress.In other words,to shorten the economic gap and achieve catching-up,it is required that the latecomer economies have faster technological progress speed than the frontier ones.The realization in the technological catching-up of the latecomer economies often occurs in the process of transition of economic growth driving force from the low-level stage to the advanced stage.The growth driving force stage determines the level of technological development and the capital factor condition endowment,thus determines the dynamic condition and path selection of technological catching-up.This paper places the technological catching-up theory in the analytical framework of the combination of macro-force guiding and micro-technology path,mainly conducts systematical integration around the process of technological catching-up,path mechanism,condition factor,evolutionary dynamic,effect performance and so on.In the first place,on the basis of clarifying the evolution process of the technological catching-up stage,combined with periodical dynamic integration relationship of the catching-up and growth driving force conversion of latecomer economies,efforts were made to explore the mechanism of the technological catching-up in the path of economic growth,and to illuminate the interactive relationship and pushing mechanism of the changes in capital allocation structure of latecomer economies and the changes in the technological progress mode in technological catching-up process,and the "innovation trap" and "imitation trap" which may be faced in the path transition of technological catching-up by latecomer economies.The second goal is to find out the convergence conditions and influence factors in the process that the latecomer economies achieve technological catching-up by conducting the absolute convergence and conditional convergence test of the latecomer economies of different technological catching-up stages.Thirdly,on the basis of theoretical research combined with the empirical research,this paper focuses on clarifying the dynamic stage and effect performance of latecomer economies in technological catching-up practice,on the one hand is committed to empirically analyzing the dynamic evolution process of latecomer economies' catching-up,on the other hand is committed to the empirical test of the effect of latecomer economies' catching-up.The value of this paper is the expansion in technological catching-up theory which can find expression in the following aspects.The paper emphasizes that the development of macroscopic catching-up at national level is substantially dependent on the optimal path of all microscopic technology progressing behavior variables,and tries to solve the matching relation between the macroscopic stage evolution and microscopic path mechanism of latecomer economies' technological catching-up.In the same time,considerations are fully taken into about the various kinds of macroscopic and microscopic condition elements and the stage suitability of effect performance.It is revealed that the latecomer economies can take advantage of the technological gap and their latecomer advantages towards frontier economies,take efforts to try adaptive and independent innovation on the basis of introducing and imitating frontier technologies,thus possibly form their own technological advantages.And then,latecomer economies need to gradually enhance the effect and promote the process of the technological catching-up under the synergistic interaction of various elements.With the full activation and release of the latecomer advantage and the independent technological innovation degree deepening,the developing stage of the latecomer economies' technological catching-up can be evolved and upgraded,which will certainly stimulate the transformation from capital-driven economy to efficiency-driven or innovation-driven ones,thus promote rapid and extraordinary economic development.The discussion structure of the research on technological catching-up of latecomer economies:Chapter 1: Introduction.The summary of the selection of the topic,the research ideas,contents methods and the main innovation points.Chapter 2: Review of the technological catching-up theory.By reviewing the origin,connotation,subject,object and influencing factors(feasibility factor,condition factor and institutional factor)of technological catching-up,clarify this paper's inheritance and extension of the technological catching-up theory content,and define related concepts and research areas,so as to provide a corresponding theoretical basis for the whole paper.Chapter 3: The stage evolution of technological catching-up.Put forward a three-stage theoretical analysis framework of "technological preparation,technological catching-up,technological frontier".Based on the evolution law of technological catching-up,clarify the dynamic integration relationship between latecomer economies' technological catching-up and growth driving force conversion.Focus on exploring the stage transition and dynamic mechanism of technological catching-up.Chapter 4: The path mechanism of technological catching-up.Emphasize the mechanism of how capital allocation structure evolution path and technology progress mode conversion path promote technological catching-up and their interactive relationship.Put forward that the mechanism of technology transformation path is "technological imitation,imitation innovation,independent innovation",and the corresponding capital allocation structure evolution path is "material capital,human capital,R & D capital".Analyze the "innovation trap" and "imitation trap" that latecomer economies may face in the process of technological catching-up.Chapter 5: The condition elements of technological catching-up.Through the absolute convergence and conditional convergence test of the technological levels of the latecomer economies in different stages of catching-up,seek the convergence conditions and influencing factors of the latecomer economies' technological catching-up,indicate that the latecomer economies need to go through a convergence process that technological gap gradually shortens in technological catching-up process.And also clear the important effect of capital,manpower,innovation capacity,trade liberalization,industrial structure and other condition elements' optimized adjustment on the latecomer economies' technological convergence or catching-up.Chapter 6: The empirical test of the latecomer economies' technological catching-up.See the growth factors and growth effects of total factor productivity as a measure of technological catching-up,conduct convergence test and effect test on technological catching-up of the latecomer economies in different technological developing stages respectively.Empirically analyze the latecomer economies' optimal evolving path,evolutionary dynamic and effect influence in technological catching-up practice.Bring dynamic difference and effect difference of the latecomer economies' catching-up in different developing stage into comparison.Chapter 7: China's technological catching-up and stage reform.Though the stage positioning and effect analyzing of China's technological catching-up dynamic,fully understand China's practical challenges in the process of catching-up,so as to seek the strategic opportunity and Way-out policy for technological catching-up in the stage transitional reform.