An Empirical Analysis of Scientific and Technological Knowledge and Manufacturing Linkages: South Korea, Mexico and Turkey

Abstract

The basis of co-evolution of technological capabilities and industrial development is investigated in several studies. Given that, this paper considers pillars of the catching-up process and factors of entering the MIT (Middle Income Trap) for latecomers and aims to investigate the linkages between the “manufacturing sector growth” and “scientific and technological knowledge”. In this context, a times series analysis based on the ARDL methodology is used to explore the long-run and short-run dependencies between the manufacturing value-added and a set of variables that represent the scientific and technological knowledge. South Korea, Mexico, and Turkey are the countries chosen for our investigation. The patents and scientific articles are utilized as the basic measures of “scientific and technological knowledge” for the period 1990–2017. The main finding of the ARDL analysis is that the three counties have different manufacturing growth trajectories due to the differences in the use of human capital and the production of “scientific and technological knowledge”.