The international economics of resources and resource ... - Index of
The international economics of resources and resource ... - Index of
The international economics of resources and resource ... - Index of
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Competences for green development <strong>and</strong> leapfrogging 261<br />
opportunities for NICs to use the latest environmentally more friendly technology,<br />
leading to a technological leapfrogging. However, this requires an interest <strong>of</strong> the<br />
NICs to push in this direction. One perspective is that these technologies help to<br />
reduce national environmental problems <strong>and</strong> to modernize the infrastructure.<br />
Another incentive is that by moving towards the latest sustainability relevant<br />
technologies, NICs might gain enough competences in order to compete on the<br />
world market in this growing market segment. Both perspectives require that NICs<br />
build up (technological <strong>and</strong> institutional) competences in the field <strong>of</strong> these<br />
technologies <strong>and</strong> their diffusion.<br />
In this paper, a first picture on the existing (technological) competences <strong>of</strong> NICs<br />
in the field <strong>of</strong> sustainability relevant technologies is presented. Various indicators are<br />
used, which are, however, not without caveats. Thus, the results must be interpreted<br />
with caution.<br />
<strong>The</strong> various indicators do not show a clear-cut picture. <strong>The</strong> differences in the<br />
results for the general innovation capabilities between the survey based methodology<br />
<strong>and</strong> the general R&D indicators (see chapter 3) point to the importance <strong>of</strong> not only<br />
relying on a single indicator. Nevertheless, there are some very robust results: <strong>The</strong><br />
general innovation capabilities differ substantially within NICs, with Korea <strong>and</strong><br />
Singapore showing the most favorable general innovation conditions <strong>and</strong> the highest<br />
absorptive capacity for new technologies.<br />
<strong>The</strong> innovation indicators with regard to the sustainability relevant technologies<br />
also show that NICs are highly heterogeneous. Furthermore, the increase in<br />
capabilities varies, but is especially high in the South (East) Asian countries.<br />
Combining the different criteria (Table 1), the following clusters can be observed:<br />
& higher level <strong>of</strong> general absorptive capability, but without specialization on<br />
sustainability technologies: Korea, Singapore, Taiwan (<strong>and</strong> perhaps China,<br />
especially if the overall size <strong>of</strong> the country is taken into account),<br />
& specialization on sustainability with a medium overall level <strong>of</strong> general absorptive<br />
capability: Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa,<br />
& medium overall level <strong>of</strong> general absorptive capability, without specialization on<br />
sustainability technologies: Argentina, India, <strong>and</strong> Chile,<br />
& lower overall level <strong>of</strong> technological capability: Venezuela, Thail<strong>and</strong>, Philippines,<br />
Indonesia.<br />
<strong>The</strong> analysis also reveals that there are quite considerable differences between the<br />
technological sustainability areas within the NICs, which are reflected in the<br />
specialization patterns. In general, NICs specialize more on material efficiency than<br />
on the other sustainability technologies. Thus, especially material efficiency seems to<br />
be a promising field for leapfrogging. For some <strong>of</strong> the NICs, the high specialization<br />
on material efficiency technologies can be traced back to a very high specialization<br />
on renewable <strong><strong>resource</strong>s</strong> (e.g. Malaysia, Brazil). This can be explained by the<br />
availability <strong>of</strong> natural <strong>resource</strong> base in these countries, which make an augmentation<br />
with technological competences in this field especially attractive. In other NICs, e.g.<br />
China <strong>and</strong> India, there is a tremendous increase in the build up <strong>of</strong> knowledge in<br />
material efficiency. This can be perhaps explained by the need to augment traditional<br />
strategies to secure <strong>resource</strong> availability by the additional option <strong>of</strong> material<br />
efficiency.