Are the major knowledge-producing countries converging in science and technology capabilities?

Abstract

The global production of scientific and technology knowledge continues to grow. Advanced western countries such as the US and the EU countries continue leading science and technology (S&T) in the world. The emergence of other knowledgeproducing countries in the last decades that occupy prominent positions in knowledge production have been changing the geography of world science and technology. By investigating the production of scientific publications and patents from a sample of traditional S&T powerhouses and the main emerging knowledge-producing countries, this paper attempts to test whether the remarkable development of S&T systems in the latter in the past decades has led to a convergence with the former in S&T capabilities. The empirical analysis of convergence highlights the presence of clubs of convergence instead of absolute convergence. Four groups of countries have been identified as converging regarding their scientific publications per capita; and six convergence clubs have been detected when the production of patents per capita is considered.