Technology and National Competitiveness

Technology is an increasingly important factor in the competition between nations for international trade. It affects the range of products a country exports, the quality of these products, and the price for which they are sold. The first part of this collection of essays reassesses and elaborates on Nobel Prize winner Wassily Leontief’s input-output model and makes use of Michael Posner’s technology gap trade theory to examine international trade and import-export factor intensity. The contributors isolate technology as a crucial factor in the foreign commerce of Canada, the USA and other industrial nations. The second part provides the theoretical background, revealing the importance of the industrialized state’s ability to affect international trade by implementing technology policy. The third section analyzes the role of government strategy in the development of technology in less industrialized nations faced with a fluctuating world economy and rapid technological change. In conclusion, the text re-evaluates Shumpeterian theory, addressing the market determinants of technological change such as market structure, corporate strategy and the size of corporations.