Technological catch-up: A new measure and patent-based evidence from China's manufacturing industries

The technological catch-up literature has not yet systematically assessed how different industries from latecomer economies have progressed in catching up. A significant challenge is the lack of reliable measures of innovation capability across countries, industries, and time. In this study, we develop a new measure of innovation capability called quality-weighted revealed innovation advantage (QRIA), which captures innovation capability more comprehensively and reliably than extant measures by simultaneously addressing issues of patent quantity distortion and patent quality heterogeneity. We apply QRIA to evaluate how globally competitive Chinese manufacturing industries (N = 22) have become in terms of innovation capability by using data from all invention patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) between 1983 and 2017. Using China as the empirical context, our study provides the first worldwide comparative evidence of technological catch-up across countries and industries over time. Our analyses reveal that while Chinese manufacturing industries have seen significant growth in patents, there are notable differences and time-varying changes in their innovation capabilities compared to their global counterparts. Only two industries have narrowed their gaps with global leaders: (1) computer, electronic, and optical products manufacturing and (2) electrical equipment manufacturing. The other industries have either fallen further behind global leaders or remained close to the average innovation capability. • Develops a robust measure of innovation capability by controlling for patent quantity distortion and patent quality heterogeneity • Presents the first-ever large-scale comparative evaluation of technological catch-up across industries and countries over 1987–2017 • Systematically assesses Chinese manufacturing industries’ global innovation competitiveness over 1987–2017 • Demonstrates that short cycle time of technology is a double-edged influential factor to technological catch-up