The ASIALICS Conference 2014
This year's ASIALICS conference (Asian Association of Learning, Innovation and Coevolution) took Place in Daegu, Korea. This year`s overall theme was "Convergence, Innovation and Creative (CIC) Economy", and keynote speakers included well known scholars such as Bengt Åke Lundvall, TIKs Jan Fagerberg, Ed Steinmueller and Keun Lee. These and other senior scholars also participated actively in the different sessions and acted as chairs for several student sessions, giving phd students the opportunity to receive comments and feedback from well known scholars in the field.
Christine presented a paper titled "From Low-Tech to High-Tech Manufacturing – Climbing the Industrial Ladder: Implications for Catch-Up and Growth", in a session chaired by Professor Ed Steinmueller from SPRU, University of Sussex. Christine's paper ended up as one of 6 winners of the best ph.d-student paper award.
Christine says this about her participation in the ASIALICS Conference:
The conference held a high quality regarding both the academic part and the organizational aspects. Several very interesting keynotes and plenary sessions, as well as paper presentations were held. Several of the keynote speakers also chose to present some of their recent work instead of their "typical lecturers", which made the keynotes extra interesting.
The paper
Photo: asialics.or.kr
The paper conducts an empirical study of countries` specialization in the manufacturing industry, with a focus on simple universal patterns rather than specific casual effects. The analysis builds on a large panel dataset covering 86 countries and 28 manufacturing industries, from 1976- 2004, with comparable data at the ISIC 3-digit level for both production and trade.
This makes us able to compare developments and structural changes happening at the same time in both trade and production, providing insight into countries` changing economic structure. A special interest is given to what degree such universal structural changes depend on income per capita, a rough proxy for the countries` development levels.
Two main conclusions can be drawn: (1) that cyclicality exists in the whole range of sectors i.e. from low-tech to high-tech, and (2) that the turning point at which a country starts losing (revealed) comparative advantage and withdraws from an industry, varies, thus indicating the existence of an industrial hierarchy. Lastly some implications for future research on manufacturing in the 21st century are made, emphasizing the continuous but changing role of manufacturing for growth and catch-up.