Below the Radar: What does Innovation in Emerging Economies have to offer other Low Income Economies?
Raphael Kaplinsky, Joanna Chataway, N. Clark, Rebecca Hanlin, Dinar Kale, Lois Muraguri, Theo Papaioannou, Peter Robbins & Watu Wamae
#2010-020
Between 1970 and 2000 the proportion of global R&D occurring in low
income economies rose from two percent to more than 20 percent. However,
this rising commitment to R&D does not easily translate into the
emergence of a family of innovations meeting the needs of low income
consumers “at the bottom of the pyramid”, since much of these
technological resources are invested in outdated structures of
innovation. A number of transnational corporations are targeting these
markets but it is our contention that much of the previously dominant
innovation value chains are either ignorant of the needs of consumers at
the bottom of the pyramid, or lack the technologies and organisational
structures to meet these needs effectively. Instead, the firms and value
chains that are likely to be most successful in these dynamic new
markets are those that are emerging in China and India and other
developing countries, disrupting global corporate and locational
hierarchies of innovation.
Keywords: Science and Technology, Asian drivers, Innovation Systems,
Millennium Development Goals
JEL Codes: B52, D21, F02, F23, F59, L26, O31