ABSTRACT
Puerto Rico is an important laboratory for analyzing economic and technological change. As a late industrializer, its rapid rise from an agrarian economy to a ‘knowledge economy’ led by a dynamic information sector challenges conventional development theories about modernization, staged growth and the role of government in national transformation. As a hub of two fast changing US high-tech manufacturing branches – pharmaceuticals and computers – the island is also at the cutting edge of a worldwide production restructuring regime based on flexible manufacturing systems, telematics, multi-skilling of the work force, and new external strategic alliances.
