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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Catching Up in Economic Transition: Innovation in the People’s Republic of China and India

What a difference? On top is China’s R+D investment from 1996 to 2012. Over the period it rose from 0.6% of GDP to the now OECD near-norm of 2%.

Below is India’s effort which has stagnated over the period at between 0.6%~0.8% (and the economy is much, much smaller).

So China wins, right? Yes, relative to India and in terms of spend, China wins; but compared to the rest of the world and other Asian peers China’s still coming up short in terms of innovative output.

In the paper highlighted this week from the Asian Development Bank Institute authored by Peilei Fan, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at Michigan State University, China is revealed to still be a relative lightweight in terms of innovative output.

In the last observed period, from 2010 to 2015, Japan (in terms of patents granted) was over 6x more fertile and China took a back seat in the rankings to Taiwan and the Republic of Korea. In terms of scientific and technical articles published China’s tally is rising but still lags the U.S. despite having more researchers (an interesting aside, in 1981 India was out-publishing China 10:1).

The purpose of the paper was to contrast India and China’s relative performance in recent decades and in the process provide a how-to and how-not-to guide for developing economies wishing to ascend the innovation ladder.

In the process, it ends up also pointing out that as far as China has come it has a long way to go before regional competitors are visible only in the rear view mirror and farther before the U.S. stops being a point on the horizon and becomes the car in front.

You can access the (short, 14-pager) paper in full via this link Innovation in China and India.

Happy Sunday.

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