That China needs to make progress up the technology/innovation curve is obvious; not least to the Zhongnanhai based engineers of ‘New Normal’. How far behind the leading edge though are they presently I wondered? And how will we be able to measure the degree and rate of catchup in years to come?
While investigating this question I came across a paper which goes a long to providing some useful answers. In the paper I’m highlighting this week Messieurs Soonwon Kwon, Jihong Lee and Sokbae Lee from the universities of Yale and Seoul National and the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London respectively have looked at the near four million patents filed in the US over the last 30-years for national patterns.
With regards to China specifically; catch ups made in the ’90s by Korea and Taiwan were matched by the same relative improvement by China in the noughties. The good news ends here though. Yes, China is filing better quality patents than before and yes, it’s moved up a league table but it hasn’t improved its relative position much. Optimists like me would pause now and with emphasis add the word, yet. Pessimists however would note perhaps the key finding from this work i.e. that not only is America still the worlds most fecund innovator but that it’s relative position, over the entire 30-year period of investigation, hasn’t budged.
Europe and Japan slid over the period and Israel achieved almost as much catch up as Korea and Taiwan. Check out the two tables that say it all; on P.2 you’ll find patents filed by sheer volume and on P. 17 you’ll find the relative rankings.
One very chilling conclusion also shakes out from this analysis; 99% of all patents filed came from just 15-countries. As a proxy for a Gini-coeffecient of progress inhabitants of countries not on that list might want to think about this? Heart breaking pictures this week of wretches fleeing Africa for Europe suggest more than a few already have.
Happy Sunday.
[You can access the paper in full at http://www.cemmap.ac.uk/wps/cwp161414.pdf]