Technological progress in developing countries between the 1990s and 2000s has been very strong, outpacing that in developed countries by 40 to 60 percent, according to a World Bank report, Global Economic Prospects 2008: Technology Diffusion in the Developing World. But the gap between rich and poor countries is still very wide.
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While the level of technology used in all countries has increased rapidly, it has done so quicker in developing countries and quickest in low-income countries.
(Of course, the initial level of technology in lower-income countries was much lower to begin with.) There is strong evidence of catch-up between middle-income and high-income countries. In Chile, Hungary, and Poland, the overall level of technological achievement increased by more than 125 percent during the 1990s.
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Despite the rapid pace of technological progress, the technology gap between high-income and developing countries remains wide, with developing countries employing only a quarter of the level of technology in developed countries. Levels of technological achievement in high-income countries are more than twice those in upper-middle income countries. This group, in turn, has levels of achievement that are more than double those in low-income countries.
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Technological achievement can also vary widely within a country.
Main cities and leading sectors often use more sophisticated technologies than the rest of the economy. For example, the IT-enabled services sector in urban India employs world-class technologies, but less than 10 percent of the country’s rural households have telephone access as of 2007. |
So, while one might have expected India to have better overall technology diffusion than other countries at similar income levels, in fact, it does not. Over time, the digital divide between rural and urban India is expected to narrow, especially in high-income states and near major cities, but it may well worsen in some areas.
Another key finding of the report is that technological progress in developing countries
almost universally reflects adoption or adaptation of pre-existing technologies rather than at-the-frontier inventions. This is not the case in rich countries.
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Full text of the report >> |
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.gif "Graph: Technological progress in developing countries has outpaced high-income countries")
.gif "Graph: Wide gaps persist in the use of many technologies in 2004")
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