Cross-over, thresholds, and interactions between science and technology: a tentative simplified model and initial notes about statistics from 120 countries

Abstract

The hypothesis of this paper is the existence of thresholds of scientific production that must be overcome to trigger new channels of interactions between the scientific and technological infrastructure. As the development process evolves, new interactions are initiated. The interactions between science and technology become stronger and more pervasive, reaching at last the mutual feedbacks and the virtuous circles typical of developed economies. Using statistics of patents (USPTO) and scientific papers (ISI) for 120 countries (for 1974, 192, 1990 and 1998), this paper investigates the relationship between the scientific infrastructure and the technological production.science and technology; economic developmentR&D; Brazil