Event

The Department of International Economics at NUPI has the great pleasure of inviting you to the seminar:

Countries differ greatly in their ability to innovate and to imitate foreign advanced technologies. The issue of cross-country heterogeneity in the technology-growth relationship now constitutes an important research topic for growth and development theory. The seminar will focus on two of the most important aspects that are currently debated in the field.

The first is the need to refine the measurement of technological and innovative capabilities of nations and the understanding of their relationships with other critical catching up factors (e.g. governance and political conditions, openness of the economy). The second is to study how the technology-growth relationship differs across country groups, and to identify the most important characteristics of different convergence clubs.

The first aspect will be investigated in the presentation by Jan Fagerberg (TIK Centre, University of Oslo), which will present a paper on “National Innovation Systems, Capabilities and Economic Development”. The second aspect will be considered by Fulvio Castellacci (NUPI), who will present a paper on “Technology Clubs, Technology Gaps and Growth Trajectories”. The general discussion will be introduced by two top experts in the technology and convergence literature, Bart Verspagen (Technical University of Eindhoven) and Per Botolf Maurseth (NUPI).