Late Industrialisation
Encyclopedia
Alice Amsden
, building on the insights of Gerschenkron
, identifies Late Industrialization as a particular form of industrialisation the study of which is useful for those interested in study of the prospects for material progress in developing countries. Amsden notes that whilst the 1st industrial revolution in the UK towards the end of the eighteenth century, and the 2nd industrial revolution 100 years later in Germany and the US both involved new products and processes, the countries that did not start industrialization until the twentieth century tended to generate neither new products nor processes. These, the late industrializers, raised their income and transformed their productive structures using borrowed technology.
Another take on this would be that the 1st industrial revolution was based on invention, the 2nd on the basis of innovation and more recently in the late industrialisers are industrialising on the basis of learning.
Amsden’s uses her thesis of late industrialization to discuss the following countries: South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, India, possibly Mexico, and Turkey and also Japan although this last country is regarded as in many respects special.
Learning in these countries has been achieved through the use of similar institutions in particular those associated with industrial policy. These learners compete, initially at least, via low wages, state subsidies or other forms of government supports, and gradual increases in quality of, and efficiency in producing, existing products. The shopfloor in businesses tends to be the “strategic focus” when competition is based on borrowed technology.
The late industrialisers have moved into the more mature markets of the innovators and the productivity of long-established innovators has been successfully challenged by the learners' lower wages, intense efforts to raise productivity and firms supported by industrial policy.
Alice Amsden
Alice Amsden is researcher in the field of heterodox political economy. She is currently the Barton L. Weller Professor of Political Economics at MIT, in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and Researcher at MIT Center for International Studies...
, building on the insights of Gerschenkron
Alexander Gerschenkron
Alexander Gerschenkron was a Russian-born American Jewish economic historian and professor in Harvard, trained in the Austrian School of economics.Gerschenkron kept to his roots - in his economics, history and as a critic of Russian literature...
, identifies Late Industrialization as a particular form of industrialisation the study of which is useful for those interested in study of the prospects for material progress in developing countries. Amsden notes that whilst the 1st industrial revolution in the UK towards the end of the eighteenth century, and the 2nd industrial revolution 100 years later in Germany and the US both involved new products and processes, the countries that did not start industrialization until the twentieth century tended to generate neither new products nor processes. These, the late industrializers, raised their income and transformed their productive structures using borrowed technology.
Another take on this would be that the 1st industrial revolution was based on invention, the 2nd on the basis of innovation and more recently in the late industrialisers are industrialising on the basis of learning.
Amsden’s uses her thesis of late industrialization to discuss the following countries: South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, India, possibly Mexico, and Turkey and also Japan although this last country is regarded as in many respects special.
Learning in these countries has been achieved through the use of similar institutions in particular those associated with industrial policy. These learners compete, initially at least, via low wages, state subsidies or other forms of government supports, and gradual increases in quality of, and efficiency in producing, existing products. The shopfloor in businesses tends to be the “strategic focus” when competition is based on borrowed technology.
The late industrialisers have moved into the more mature markets of the innovators and the productivity of long-established innovators has been successfully challenged by the learners' lower wages, intense efforts to raise productivity and firms supported by industrial policy.