ABSTRACT
A country’s ability to generate, modify and distribute knowledge determines its level of economic development (Romer 1986, 1990; Lundvall 1992; Hanusch and Pyka 2007a, 2007b; Hartmann 2014). Recently, Turkey has made substantial improvements with respect to the diversification and sophistication of their export portfolio (see Chapter 3 of this book). It is unclear, though, to which extent this improvement in economic complexity is accompanied also by endogenous technological upgrading. In this chapter we will explore EPO patent data to reveal in which industrial technology fields Turkey is developing technological advant ages and in which technology fields it is lagging behind in comparison to Germany and the average of 28 European economies between 1981 and 2010. Moreover we use methods from network analysis to identify key player – namely international partners, geographical regions, core technology fields, and key inventors and applicants – in the international patent networks of Turkey.
