The measurement of innovation is a complex and ambiguous challenge. Two broad families of measures have been used: those focusing on inputs and those focusing on outputs. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, but neither is able to capture the growing importance of product innovation...

In recent years, globalization has been associated with increasing inequality within and between countries, and with a stubbornly large share of the world's population living in poverty. If the "losers" had been confined to those who did not participate in the global economy, then the policy...

Mainstream economics and the agenda promoted by Washington Consensus institutions focuses on the role played by markets. In recent years, this policy agenda has been concentrated on a series of behind-, beyond- and between-the-border trade-related issues. Whilst valuable, this agenda fails to...

BARNES J. and KAPLINSKY R. (2000) Globalization and the death of the local firm? The automobile components sector in South Africa, Reg. Studies 34 , 797-812. As in the case of many developing countries, South African industry is facing a new competitive environment as trade barriers fall. This...

This paper seeks to build on theory, to develop new methods for understanding the nature and basis of sectoral and national competitive advantage, and to do so with a temporal perspective. Neo-Schumpeterian and evolutionary economics perspectives (which place innovation at the forefront of...

This paper analyzes the unit prices of imports into the EU, Japan, and the US during 1989–2006 of manufactured products in which China specializes. It finds that imports from middle income countries are in close price competition with those from China and that there has been price competition...

Between 1970 and 2000 the proportion of global R&D occurring in low income economies rose from two percent to more than 20 percent. However, this rising commitment to R&D does not easily translate into the emergence of a family of innovations meeting the needs of low income consumers "at the...

The paper examines the nature of the changes occurring in industrial organisation in the 1990s and the experience of developing countries (LDCs) in adopting the emerging form of organisation or 'mass customisation'. These changes include a drive towards product heterogeneity and innovation, and...