Xiaodan Yu, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna; Giovanni Dosi, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna; Jiasu Lei, Tsinghua University; and Alessandro Nuvolari, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Industrial and Corporate Change
Abstract: This article investigates the microeconomics underlying the spectacular growth of productivity in China’s manufacturing sector over the period 1998–2007. Underlying the aggregate evidence of such dramatic growth, one observes a large, albeit shrinking, intra-sectoral heterogeneity coupled with an even more important process of learning and knowledge accumulation. A major process of both catching-up and dying out among the least efficient ones occurs. Furthermore, we explore the effect of the characteristics of firms according to the ownership and governance structure upon the productivity distributions, highlighting the importance of the transformation of domestic firms as drivers of technical learning. In essence, China’s fast catching-up process entails more of learning and “creative restructuring” of domestic firms rather than sheer “creative destruction” and even less so a multinational corporation-led drive.
The Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation (PVMI) is the largest and oldest international research consortium aimed at understanding the challenges facing the global automotive industry. PVMI’s network includes more than 50 prominent scholars of innovation, strategy, technology, operations, organization, and human resources who have conducted interdisciplinary, often collaborative, research at more than 25 universities worldwide. Originally founded at MIT in 1979, PVMI became part of the Mack Institute in 2013.