Leapfrogging in Technological Leadership and Uneven Growth

Abstract

Parente and Prescott (1993) proposed four development facts after studying per-capita GDP data of 102 countries over 196085 period. In this paper, we model economic and technological leapfrogging and the phenomenon of uneven growth suggested by their study. In our model, leapfrogging occurs because of the nature of technological changes and uneven growth concerns the amount of national knowledge stock that exists when a new technology arrives. Our model is one of 2-good 3-country Ricardian model. There are two sectors. food and manufacturing. Three countries compete to have comparative advantage in manufacturing sector which is growth generating.