Technology Catch up in Emerging Economies: Emerging versus Mature Technologies

This paper examines how emerging economies (EE) overcome their latecomer disadvantages and catch up technologically with developed economies (DE). Specifically, we examine the nature of technologies that EE firms innovate in (namely emerging or mature technologies) and also investigate the role of governmental effort and firm activity in directing technology development. Data from 57 countries on patents filed with USPTO from 2000 to 2008 is used to test our hypotheses. We find that government R&D efforts are more likely to focus on mature technologies whereas R&D efforts by independent firms are more likely to focus on emerging technologies. We also find that firms are more likely to innovate in mature technologies, and that EE firms may have higher propensity to innovate in mature technologies than DE firms.