Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Alcorta, Ludovico
Author-Workplace-Name: United Nations University, Institute for New Technologies
Title: The Impact of Industrial Automation on Industrial Organisation: Implications
	for Developing Countries' Competitiveness 
Abstract: The paper examines profuse literature indicating the potential advantages of
	 recent microelectronics-based industrial automation for developing countries in the
	 light of present trends for the diffusion of industrial automation and their impact
	 on industrial organisation in the mechanical engineering industry. It argues that
	 industrial automation does not seem to be leading to the beneficial effects
	 predicted in the literature. The paper points out that while diffusion of new
	 technologies has proceeded at a rapid pace in developed countries, this has not
	 been the case in developing countries, and suggests that industrial automation may
	 lead to less production flexibility, higher optimal scales of output, increasing
	 vertical integration and an ever-increasing research and development effort. These
	 effects should make the process of industrial development for developing countries
	 more difficult rather than easier. However, the paper also argues that developing
	 countries have little choice but to adopt the new technologies if they are to have
	 any chance of engaging in a sustained process of industrialisation and technical
	 change.
Keywords: Automation, Industrial organization, developing countries
Series: Discussion Paper
Creation-Date: 1995
Number: 8
File-URL: http://www.intech.unu.edu/publications/discussion-papers/9508.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 201 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unuint:199508