Globalization, the rise of biotechnology and catching up in agricultural innovation: The case of Bt technology in India

Michiko Iizuka () and Ajay Thutupalli

No 2014-054, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: The agricultural sector has played an important role in the provision of food, foreign exchange and sustainable energy to many developing countries. This sector, however, has not been considered as a driving force of innovation as compared to other productive sectors. However, recent economics and international business literature suggests that the agricultural sector 1 has become knowledge intensive with the rise of biotechnology Bt; and 2 is a sector where firms in developing countries can play an important role in production and innovation due to their latent advantage in the context-specific or in-situ knowledge base. In this paper, we first present a conceptual framework that characterizes the knowledge required for successful agricultural innovation against the backdrop of globalization and rise of biotechnology. We then examine the case of diffusion of Bt cotton hybrids Bacillus thuringiensis, an insect resistant seed technology in India to illustrate the dynamics of knowledge creation and catching up by the local seed firms based on their interactions with global as well as other local firms. Our analysis reveals that the local firms with absorptive capacity, that is, the ability to effectively integrate location-specific in-situ knowledge and generic scientific knowledge global knowledge can catch up with global frontier technologies to gain significant domestic market shares.

Keywords: Biotechnology; Agricultural innovation; Innovation; Globalization; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O31 O32 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cse, nep-ino and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2014/wp2014-054.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2014054

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).