Learning and Innovation What's Different in the (Sub)Tropics and How Do We Explain it? A Review Essay

Much innovation research views catch-up as a process that at low levels of development starts with imitation, and whose end point is innovation; and it posits that different stages require different frameworks to explain what is going on. In its more extreme versions it adds a horizontal to the over-time differentiation and demands that individual or groups of countries be appreciated for their contextual dissimilarities, requiring in each case yet another tailor-made model. The purpose of this review essay is to argue that to derive and justify different sui-generis frameworks from differential catch-up experiences is a non-sequitur, theoretically unsatisfactory, empirically unhelpful and not constructive for policy.Conceptually, all the pieces for a more unified approach are in place. We know how firms gain competitiveness through dynamic capabilities and complementary assets. We also know that firm-level technological capabilities are related to national (and perhaps regional) technological capabilitie...