Technological Races in Global Industries (Technology Races)

Abstract

The starting point of our consideration on technological racing are stochastic models that view corporations as moving objects to approach a stochastic destination. A major focus is the strategic orientation of corporations in participating in such a race , revealing empirically observable phenomena such as 'catchup' and 'leapfrogging', as supported by statistical measurements. Next to the analysis of behavioural patterns on the corporate or industry level is their aggregation on a national scale that extends to racing on economic growth among (groups of) countries. A major conjecture of the paper is that technological racing patterns on a micro scale reinforce globalization and limit control of national and industry policy.