Technology foresight and industrial strategy in developing countries
Carlo Pietrobelli & Fernanda Puppato
#2015-016
When Technology Foresight (TF) began to be adopted in industrial
countries, it tended to be still somewhat a marginal activity in
developing countries. It was then believed that TF and its prediction of
the future was a matter that only highly industrialised countries could
endeavour to achieve, being more engaged and interested in frontier and
"new to the world" innovation.
Today globalisation, increased complexity, competition and fast
technical change, have radically transformed the range of economic
activities that developing countries can perform. Production is
internationally fragmented and organised along global value chains.
Dense flows of knowledge and technology are available, but need to be
fully exploited and employed within coherent industrial strategies. A
specialisation by technology and learning has become the dominant
paradigm and developing countries must detect opportunities for future
technological and productive specialisation in order to catch up and
forge ahead. Yet, often TF exercises do not go hand in hand with the
design of a concrete policy strategy to promote emerging countries'
productive development and catching up.
This paper analyses how and to what extent TF programmes are needed in
developing countries given the new prevailing global context. It argues
that the link between TF and broader industrial development strategy
needs to be taken seriously in light of its role to shape technological
change and economic growth, and that TF and industrial development
strategy need to be coherently designed and implemented. We provide
preliminary support to this argument by discussing the theoretical
foundations of TF and industrial strategy and their justification, and
then reviewing some relevant examples from Brazil, Chile and South
Korea.
JEL Classification: O380, O250
Key words: Technological Change, Science Technology and Innovation
Policy, Industrial Policy, Technology Foresight, Catch-up, Global Value
Chains, Innovation Councils, Brazil, Chile, South Korea.