Technological regimes, catching-up and leapfrogging: findings from the Korean industries

This paper examines the experiences of selected industries in Korea to iden tify the stylized facts in the process of technological capability building , and thereby, to sort out the conditions for the catching-up to occur. To explain the process, we have built a model of technological and market catc hing-up. A special attention has been given to the question of whether ther e has been a case of leapfrogging in any industry in Korea and, if so, what are: the conditions for its incidence. In our framework, we first measure the degree of catching-up in terms of market shares in the world. Then, we focus on catching-up in technological capabilities in explaining the differ ent record and prospects of Korean industries in market catching-up. In the model, technological capability is determined as a function of both techno logical effort and the existing knowledge base. As determinants of technolo gical effort, we look at the technological regimes of the industries, such as cumulativeness of technical advances, fluidity (predictability) of techn ological trajectory, and the properties of knowledge base. Using this model, we explain the different technological evolution of the s elected industries in Korea, including the D-RAM, automobile, mobile phone, consumer electronics, personal computer and machine tool industries. We fi nd three different patterns of catching-ups, path-creating catching-up (CDM A mobile phone), path-skipping catching-up (D-RAM and automobile), and path -following catching-up (consumer electronics, personal computers and machin e tools). We interpret the first two case of catching-up as "leapfrogging." Unlike the argument by Perez and Soete [Perez, C., Soete, L., 1988. Catchi ng-up in technology: entry barriers and windows of opportunity. In: Dosi, e t al., (Eds.), Technical Change and Economic Theory, Pinter Publishers, Lon don.], we find that important R&D projects, except automobiles where only p rivate R&D was involved, involved both private and public capacities, and t hat entry was not driven by endogenous generation of knowledge and skills, but by collaboration with foreign companies. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.