Chapter 6: Science & Engineering Indicators 93
Leading Indicators of National Competitiveness
The model used to develop the competitiveness projections discussed in this section combines various quantitative data with expert-derived measures to produce the following four leading indicator areas.
- National commitment: evidence that a nation is taking directed action to achieve technological competitiveness.
- Socioeconomic infrastructure: the social and economic institutions that support and maintain the physical, human, organizational, and economic resources essential to the functioning of a modern, technology-based industrial nation.
- Technological infrastructure: the social and economic institutions that contribute directly to a nation's capacity to develop, produce, and market new technology.
- Productive capacity: the physical and human resources devoted to manufacturing products, and the efficiency with which those resources are used.
These indicators have been the subject of several research projects conducted in three phases over 5 years. Phase I sought to identify a set of composite indicators that could be used to assess current and future national competitiveness in
technology-based product markets; phase II focused on expanding country coverage and testing the indicators; and phase III, now under way, entails further model refinement and testing. For further details on this research and on indicator
construction, see Porter and Roessner (1991).
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