High Technologies And The International Competitiveness Of The German Economy

Following World War II, the U.S. manufacturing sector emerged as the dominant industrial force in the world in virtually all areas, including productivity, market share, innovations, and capital investments. Though other countries have caught up with and surpassed the United States in many industries, Romesh Diwan and Chandana Chakraborty argue that America can recapture its dominant role by moving forcefully into high-technology industries. In this work, they examine competitiveness in a range of high-technology enterprises, analyzing the industries as an aggregate as well as through three specific examples: semi-conductors, telecommunications, and computers. The authors provide a complete understanding of the technical changes and developments that are taking place in U.S. high technology, and offer guidance to policy makers in promoting competitive strength. Their work defines and quantifies the high-tech industrial sector of the U.S, economy, and analyzes the productivity of this sector by utilizing a translog cost function, which provides information about the structure of the input-output relations in a particular industry. Using these functions, Diwan and Chakraborty answer quantitatively a number of questions relating to the growth of various inputs, productivities, and outputs, which lead to conclusions regarding the structure of production, costs, and capacity in U.S. industry. Their conclusions--that technical change is biased in the main in favor of capital and material, and that capital and skilled labor are complements--are consistent with new ideas and theories in the field. This work will be a valuable reference source for professional economists and policy experts, as well as for scholars and students in international trade, finance, and development.

Maintaining the innovation capabilities of firms, employees and institutions is a key component for the generation of sustainable growth, employment, and high income in industrial societies. Gaining insights into the German innovation system and the institutional framework is as important to policy making as is data on the endowment of the German economy with factors fostering innovation and their recent development. Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research has repeatedly commissioned reports on the competitive strength of the German innovation system since the mid-eighties. The considerable attention that the public and the political, administrative and economic actors have paid to these reports in the past few years proves the strong interest in the assessment of and indicators for the dynamics behind innovation activities. The present study closely follows the pattern of those carried out before. It has been extended, however, to include an extensive discussion on indicators for technological performance and an outline of the key features of the German innovation system.

This book highlights the economic relevance of the so-called low-tech industries and firms. Non R&D intensive firms continue to be the economic backbone of several developed industrial countries. They form the core of National Innovation Systems and contribute significantly to growth and employment. However, due to their lack of R&D activity, they are easily overlooked in the general innovation debate. This book provides latest empirical findings on the current economic relevance and specific innovation strategies and management of non-R&D intensive firms in Germany. It discusses their future role in a knowledge driven economy as well as possible implications for innovation and technology policy. An outcome of several years of dedicated research conducted at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), this book will prove of immense value to researchers and policy makers dealing with innovation and knowledge strategy.

From the Foreword: [This report] provides an American perspective on the longer-term structural challenges confronting the two economies across a broad range of industries. It examines longer-term competitive issues relating to productivity, wages, exchange rates, and the creation and diffusion of new technology that our two countries will be addressing even after federal budget deficits have been brought down and the new bilateral trade agreement has been implemented.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

Dynamic technological developments in industrial production, the rise of new social movements in national politics, and great changes in the international political economy have left a deep imprint on the Federal Republic. A compelling explanation of West Germany's success in maintaining economic prosperity and political stability under such challenging conditions has continued to elude observers. Under the editorship of Peter J. Katzenstein, thirteen distinguished scholars from both sides of the Atlantic here provide an original interpretation of the political economy of the Bonn Republic during the forty years since its founding, and explore in particular its extraordinary capacity for accommodating change. Whereas studies in political economy have typically focused on one level of political action—either the shop floor, or national politics, or the international system—this innovative account analyzes the interaction of change at all three levels, bringing together case studies drawn from six manufacturing and service sectors.