In this carefully chosen selection of essays, Linsu Kim - one of Korea's foremost social scientists, who is advising the Korean government on reform strategy in light of the recent crisis - identifies the evolutionary processes and patterns of learning, capability building, and innovation in catch-up countries. He suggests that catch-up economies display different patterns of learning and innovation to more advanced countries. Using the example of Korea, he examines industries such as consumer electronics, machinery, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and semiconductors, all of which have been important contributors to Korea's economic growth and development. Linsu Kim analyses both the formal and informal mechanisms Korea has used in acquiring technologies from, mainly, advanced countries. He considers how these technologies are assimilated rapidly into the local economy, and in some cases improved to increase Korea's international competitiveness. This examination and extension of the theory of learning and innovation has many useful implications for both catch-up economies and also advanced countries. It offers analytical frameworks which policymakers and managers can use in formulating and evaluating public policies and corporate strategies. Learning and Innovation in Economic Development will be of interest to a wide audience including those working in the fields of technology management, innovation studies and development economics.

This volume presents ten original essays and four commentaries contributed by leading scholars in technology and innovation that discuss how newly industrializing countries (NICs), particularly those in East Asia, have transformed themselves from technologically backward and poor to relatively modern and affluent economies over the past thirty years. They provide interesting theoretical perspectives and the insightful understanding of the process of technological progress at both the macro and micro levels in these countries.

This volume presents ten original essays and four commentaries contributed by leading scholars in technology and innovation that discuss how newly industrializing countries (NICs), particularly those in East Asia, have transformed themselves from technologically backward and poor to relatively modern and affluent economies over the past thirty years. They provide interesting theoretical perspectives and the insightful understanding of the process of technological progress at both the macro and micro levels in these countries.