ABSTRACT
As illustrated in previous chapters, the importance of ‘foreign’ technology and its international diffusion has been historically a well-recognized factor in the industrialization of both Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century, and even more strikingly of Japan in the twentieth century. That importance emerges stronger daily from the evidence with regard to the rapid industrialization of the so-called ‘newly industrializing countries’, sometimes also called ‘dynamic Asian economies’, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and more recently China, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Developing countries as a group have reached growth rates during the 1980s and 1990s which have been substantially higher than those of the developed countries. As noted by the IMF, the growth rates of the developed (OECD) countries no longer represent the ‘engine’ of world growth, in contrast with the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time many developing countries, particularly in Africa, have continued to lag behind and see their growth in GDP systematically outperformed by population growth, hence reducing the per capita wealth available.
