ABSTRACT
In the decades that the topic of catching up has received attention, two approaches have developed to understand the catch-up process used in countries around the world. One approach is examining growth at an accounting level: using the number of granted patents as the index for innovation capability, this approach seeks to answer the following question: what are the key factors that enable catching up in developing or newly developed countries? Furman and Hayes (2004) try to find the answer in a qualitative way. Based on a growth model from Romer (1990), the theory of national competitive advantage (Porter 1990) and the definition of national innovation systems provided by Nelson (1993), Furman and Hayes have built a new framework, finding that the factors behind catching up or standing still are the development of innovation-enhancing policies and infrastructure and ever-increasing financial and human capital investment in innovation. However, this approach cannot give a simple explanation for what country-specific factors account for a country's catch-up and how those factors can work together to catch up at the fastest possible rate.
