Education, Competitiveness and Technological Performance

This work investigates how it is possible for human capital accumulation to fail in delivering modernisation to middle-income countries. This failure is a consequence of the disruptive effects of knowledge accumulation as firms simultaneously seek a means to survive and to increase their competitiveness in a globalising economy. The work proposes a rational economic explanation for a pervasive phenomenon that has so far been neglected by the mainstream human capital theory - the commonly observed pattern of relative inertia in the demand for human capital accumulation in middle-income countries. The book makes a major contribution to understanding the possibility of 'low level' equilibrium 'traps' in the development process and poses a challenging set of issues for future research and policy consideration.