Leapfrogging occurs when a nation bypasses traditional stages of development to either jump directly to the latest technologies (stage-skipping) or explore an alternative path of technological development involving emerging technologies with new benefits and new opportunities (path-creating). Probably the most famous and regularly cited instance of stage-skipping is the mobile revolution, which put phones in the hands of millions of people while allowing developing nations to skip directly to mobile phones without the need to invest in landline infrastructure. The opportunities of path-creating leapfrogging, on the other hand, are exemplified by the explosion of mobile payment systems and digital banking apps in the developing world. These new services have dramatically expanded access to financial services while allowing emerging economies to chart an alternative, superior path to the credit card-based systems that still dominate in most developed nations.
china leap frog test
In this framing, the ambition of leapfrog development is limited to simply passing over the need for a country to invest in low-value manufacturing on their way toward building a high-tech, modern economy. These goals can be useful, insofar as they often lead to an emphasis on investing in education, R&D, strong governance, intellectual property protection, and infrastructure development. However, they are still ultimately catch-up strategies at heart. They still assume that the economic configuration of developed nations is the target to aim for. In some cases, they are looking to copy and paste Silicon Valley. These strategies rarely show signs of considering whether developing countries may have unique competitive advantages that would allow them to forge their own development path via their own unique version of leapfrogging. As a result, policymakers are never prompted to explore how they might create an enabling environment for more disruptive, path-creating forms of leapfrogging that allow new, alternative technology-based systems to take root.
This lack of clear strategy is a missed opportunity. There is tremendous potential for leapfrogging to drive growth if done correctly. Developing nations have latecomer advantages over more developed countries when it comes to technology adoption. The lack of legacy infrastructure and entrenched vested interests could allow for the rapid adoption of emerging technologies, especially compared to developed nations that are forced to follow more incremental transition plans. This flexibility could allow developing nations to plan their policies, innovation ecosystems, and infrastructure with emerging technologies in mind from the start. This approach would speed their transition to more efficient systems and provide their entrepreneurs an early opportunity to become a part of the value chain that will grow up around those innovations.
Even in the absence of explicit leapfrogging strategies, a number of countries have already seen success in supporting leapfrog development. These countries have taken advantage of innovative business models and flexible regulatory approaches to encourage growth. These instances can provide lessons for understanding the enabling conditions necessary for leapfrog development to succeed and how other countries can build strategies that will help create the conditions for growth.
Leapfrogging should be viewed for what it is: an enabler of sustainable development rather than a solution to all development challenges in emerging economies. When properly supported by a robust and dynamic innovation ecosystem and good governance, leapfrog development can have transformative effects. But the leapfrogging itself is only one piece of the puzzle. The question for policymakers, in that case, is twofold: how can countries enable leapfrog development, and how can they ensure that leapfrogging produces real value? Policymakers in developing nations currently lack a framework for thinking through both of these issues.
These insights help point toward the outlines of an eventual strategy for enabling leapfrog development, but there is still much that remains unknown. There is a need for technologists, development experts, and policymakers to come together to evaluate past instances of leapfrogging and explore emerging technologies that could hold disruptive potential for developing economies in the future. These insights should inform context-specific strategies that will help policymakers identify the conditions for leapfrog development, build flexible policies that enable innovation to succeed and scale, and respond to new technology trends in ways that encourage adoption and value creation.
Leapfrogging is a concept used in many domains of the economics and business fields, and was originally developed in the area of industrial organization and economic growth. The main idea behind the concept of leapfrogging is that small and incremental innovations lead a dominant firm to stay ahead. However, sometimes, radical innovations will permit new firms to leapfrog the ancient and dominant firm.[1] The phenomenon can occur to firms but also to leadership of countries or cities, where a developing country can skip stages of the path taken by industrial nations, enabling them to catch up sooner, particularly in terms of economic growth.[2]
In the field of industrial organization (IO), the main work on leapfrogging was developed by Fudenberg, Gilbert, Stiglitz and Tirole[3] (1983). In their article, they analyze under which conditions a new entrant can leapfrog an established firm.
Similarly a country which has leadership can lose its hegemony and be leapfrogged by another country. This has happened in history a few times. In the late eighteenth century, the Netherlands was leapfrogged by the UK, which was the leader during the whole nineteenth century, and in turn the US leapfrogged the UK, and became the hegemonic power of the 20th century.
There are several reasons for this. Brezis and Krugman (1993,[6] 1997[7]) suggest a mechanism that explains this pattern of "leapfrogging" as a response to occasional major changes in technology. In times of small and incremental technological change, increasing returns to scale tend to accentuate economic leadership. However, at times of a radical innovation and major technological breakthrough, economic leadership, since it also implies high wages, can deter the adoption of new ideas in the most advanced countries. A new technology may well seem initially inferior to older methods to those who have extensive experience with those older methods; yet that initially inferior technology may well have more potential for improvements and adaptation. When technological progress takes this form, economic leadership will tend to be the source of its own downfall.
In consequence, when a radical innovation occurs, it does not initially seem to be an improvement for leading nations, given their extensive experience with older technologies. Lagging nations have less experience; the new technique allows them to use their lower wages to enter the market. If the new technique proves more productive than the old, leapfrogging of leadership occurs.
Brezis and Krugman have applied this theory of leapfrogging to the field of geography, and explain why leading cities are often overtaken by upstart metropolitan areas. Such upheavals may be explained if the advantage of established urban centers rests on localized learning by doing. When a new technology is introduced, for which this accumulated experience is irrelevant, older centers prefer to stay with a technology in which they are more efficient. The changes to technological leadership can reveal the challenges concerning the effects of backwardness on the willingness to innovate or adopt radical and new ideas.[8] New centers, however, turn to the new technology and are competitive despite the raw state of that technology because of their lower land rents and wages. Over time, as the new technology matures, the established cities are overtaken.
More recently the concept of leapfrogging is being used in the context of sustainable development for developing countries as a theory of development which may accelerate development by skipping inferior, less efficient, more expensive or more polluting technologies and industries and move directly to more advanced ones.
The concept of environmental leapfrogging also includes a social dimension. The diffusion and application of environmental technologies would not only reduce environmental impacts, but can at the same time contribute to sustainable economic development and the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by promoting greater access to resources and technologies to people who currently have no access. Regarding electricity currently nearly one third of the world population has no access to electricity and another third has only poor access. Reliance on traditional biomass fuels for cooking and heating can have a serious impact on health and the environment. There is not only a direct positive link between sustainable renewable energy technologies and climate change mitigation, but also between clean energy and issues of health, education and gender equity.[14]
The Reut Institute has carried out extensive research regarding the common denominators of all the different countries that have successfully 'leapt' in recent years. It concludes that to leapfrog a country needs to create a shared vision, leadership by a committed elite, 'Inclusive growth', relevant institutions, a labor market suited to cope with rapid growth and changes, growth diagnostics of the country's bottlenecks and focused reforms as well as local and regional development and national mobilization.
WASHINGTON, D.C.- In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), LeapFrog, a division of Knowledge Kids Enterprises Inc., of Emeryville, Calif., is voluntarily recalling about 500,000 "Alphabet Pal" electronic pull toys. The toy has a two-part, red plastic connector on the pull string designed to separate under tension. The plastic pieces can detach from the string when the connector is pulled apart and could pose a choking hazard to young children.LeapFrog has received nine reports of the red plastic connector detaching. No injuries have been reported.Consumers should cut the red plastic string connector off of these toys immediately, or return it to the firm to receive a free replacement toy without a plastic connector.The "Alphabet Pal" is a green caterpillar pull toy, about 12 inches long, with four wheels. It has 26 plastic legs, one for each letter of the alphabet. When its yellow pull cord is tugged, the toy sings the ABC Song. Other functions include color and letter name identification, and letter sounds. The antennae on the caterpillar's head lights up. Writing on the toy includes, "LEAP FROGTM" and "Made in China."Toy, department and specialty stores nationwide sold these toys from June 1999 through November 2000 for about $20.For more information, call LeapFrog at 877-501-5327 anytime, write to: LeapFrog, 1400 65th Street, Suite 200, Emeryville, CA 94608-1071, or visit the firm's web site at www.leapfrog.com.Toys without plastic connectors on the pull-string are not part of this recall. 2ff7e9595c
Comments