Latecomer strategies for catching up: linkage, leverage, and learning

The foundations of successful development lie in the formulation of latecomer strategies which enable countries that arrive late on the world industrial scene to accelerate their development through targeted catch-up efforts. The latecomer advantage needs to be captured by developing countries through targeted strategies. The potential advantage consists of this: a country arriving late on the industrial scene is able to access advanced technologies that have been developed elsewhere and put them to business use at lower cost than advanced firms themselves—sometimes at lower cost, and faster, than the very firms that developed the technologies in the first place.