Catching up is not a process of exact copying but reflects deliberate and often creative modifications to tailor practice to national conditions, especially those practices associated with institutions and norms within which the physical technologies embodied in productive economic activities...

Sanjaya Lall saw economic development as an evolutionary process, with technological learning at its heart. This essay lays out the key differences between an evolutionary theory of economic activity and change, and the neoclassical theory as articulated in economic textbooks. It argues that...