ABSTRACT
In the past two decades, a good deal of attention has been focused on the consequences of the international transfer of technology (and other resources) on recipient or host countries.' But it has only been since the mid-1970s that some of the implications of this transfer for the exporting or source countries have been seriously discussed. This has been prompted primarily by a growing sense of concern, articulated by politicians, businessmen and academics alike, that the industrialized developed world - as represented mainly by the OECD countries - is either benefiting insufficiently from the export of technology or techno logical capacity 2 or being adversely affected by it. That these concerns are being expressed at a time when host countries, particularly develop ing countries, are taking action to control the amount and form of technological imports and to tilt the terms of trade in their favour has led some observers to bt? pessimistic about the prospects for the international transfer of technology, at least as between North and South. From a time in the mid-1950s, when the exchange of technology was generally thought to be a positive sum game, with both exporting and importing nations benefiting, the early 1980s, by contrast, were producing situ ations in which both parties perceived themselves to be worse off as a result of the transfer. Thoughprima facie implausible, such a result is theoretically feasible, particularly where the parties to the exchange aim to maximize relative rather than absolute economic gains, and/or have different political or cultural perceptions.
