Introduction

Frank-Jürgen Richter and Parthasarathi Banerjee

A chapter in The Knowledge Economy in India, 2003, pp 1-15 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Every country or firm must have education and training in technology and science, even if the research is not on par with that being conducted elsewhere. Knowledge cannot be absorbed unless some knowledge is already possessed. Countries and firms must be open to new ideas, have multiple sources of new ideas, and see that ideas are diffused. This point strongly argues for freedom of entry, even when it seems to forgo economies of scale. (Arrow, 2000, p. 19) The knowledge economy in India seems to be approaching norms laid out by such Arrowian imperatives. Liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy is taking place when its economy is toddling on the two legs of the old and the new – the former characterized by lack of competition and lack of openness, and the latter exhibiting germinal openness, competitiveness and knowledge intensity. Undeniably in its transition to a knowledge economy, this new economy has received its support mostly from the markets of the OECD countries while its own home market has remained saddled with the old economy struggling for its existence. Diffusion of ICT (information and communication technology) in the home market has remained pitiably low. R& D intensity of manufacturing, often used as a surrogate for knowledge intensity of an economy, also puts India to shame when one compares statistics even with Chinese counterparts. Interfacing ICT usage with indigenous languages and with indigenous cultures has thus received very low attention. This has been compounded by one of the lowest levels of literacy, threatened further by cuts in public expenditure on higher education which has failed to achieve laurels internationally over the last couple of decades. The old economy syndrome had put nails in the coffin of local entrepreneurship.

Keywords: OECD Country; Knowledge Economy; Industrial Relation; Compound Annual Growth Rate; Threat Perception (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:pal:palchp:978-0-230-51298-6_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230512986

DOI: 10.1057/9780230512986_1

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().