International Technological Specialisation in Industrial Countries: Patterns and Dynamics

This paper employs a distribution dynamics approach to examine the empirical dynamics of technological specialisation in industrial countries. Using patent data, cross-sectional distributions at different time periods and Markov stochastic kernels are estimated nonparametrically for each country. Three are the main findings. There is a strong country size effect: economically “large” countries spread their innovation activities across a wider range of technologies and display a higher degree of persistence. Mobility is nevertheless high. Mobility is also asymmetric: it appears mostly difficult for a country to improve the specialisation level in very disadvantaged technologies, while high comparative advantages in technologies show a fairly general tendency to revert towards lower specialisation levels. These findings cast doubt on the theory of technological accumulation and pathdependence, hence on its implication of persistence in national patterns of industrial specialisation and on the effectiveness of targeted industrial and technology policies. JEL codes: C10, C14, C23, F14, O34, O57