Accepted Session, World Economic History Congress 2025, Lund, 28 July – 1 August 2025

Organizers: Adoración Álvaro-Moya (CUNEF Universidad), Pierre-Yves Donzé (Osaka University) and Santiago López (Universidad de Salamanca)

We invite scholars from all over the world to submit proposals for papers exploring the role of employees’ training and education in the internalization of imported knowledge in 20th-century late industrializing countries.

Economics and economic history have tended to analyze industrial revolutions and economic change focusing on the role of the capital factor, either the incorporation of new equipment or changes in the organization of production processes, and of human capital, measured mainly as the stock of education (Abramovitz, 1986; Arora and Gambardella, 1990; Mangematin and Nesta, 1999). Since the pioneer works of A. Gerschenkron (1962, 1968), it has been widely recognized the no-leading countries enjoy some advantages which facilitate their industrialization and catching up with the leaders, mainly the possibility of importing technology from the latter (Rodrik, 2009; Allen, 2011; Calvo, 2021). However, the mere importation of technology is not enough. The imported technology (and knowledge) must also be internalized or absorbed by the domestic firms and workforce, leading even to the improvement of the imported technology or the development of their own (Kline and Rosenberg, 1999, 1986; Godin, 2006; Prados and Rosés, 2010; Hoyrup, 2012). For some authors, this technology internalization set the basis for the development of specific advantages which are behind the rapid development of multinational companies in late-industrializing countries (Guillén & García-Canal, 2013; Matthews, 2006).

This session investigates this process of technology absorption by focusing on the role of education and of employees’ training. The reason for such a choice lies on the well-known “Leontief Paradox” and later literature for an explanation. Leontief (1953 and 1954) found in the 1947 U.S. foreign trade statistics that exported goods were not capital-intensive, as might have been expected for a technologically leading country, but labor-intensive. This was explained by the fact that a relatively abundant highly skilled labor force was enabling the United States to exploit natural resources and agriculture on the basis of a very efficient use of capital goods (e.g. Leamer, 1980; Trefler, 1993; Kiyota, 2021). However, according to firm-level studies, the keys of the US competitiveness seem to lie in two more specific components, investment in scientific research and the combinations of highly skilled labour (scientists, engineers and senior managers) with qualified labour (technicians, workshop masters, etc.), foremen and blue-collar workers (Landau, Rosenberg and Mowery, 1992; Chandler, 1990). Those economies industrializing late and fast, therefore, not only have to import and internalize foreign technology and knowledge, but they also need to prompt labour force education and training to encompass this process of structural change.

The session aims to promote a multidisciplinary, comparative and transcontinental scholarly dialogue on this issue, focusing on late industrializing countries in the 20th century. Therefore, we invite scholars from all over the world to submit proposals for papers that provide new empirical evidence, which are built on a sound theoretical and methodological basis. Topics can for example deal with any private or public initiative aiming to improve population’s skills, such as the development of public education on vocational training; in-company training at foreign companies’ subsidiaries, state-owned enterprises or private firms; the role of international cooperation in education development and of the local actors involved in the execution of the internationally-sponsored programs; and the development of patent systems to assist in the process, among other.

Those scholars interested must submit a provisional paper and a 500-word abstract to Adoración Álvaro (adoracionalvaro@cunef.edu) by November 30, 2024. Authors will be notified by mid December 2024. The session organizer plan to coordinate a collective book in an international publishing house based on the contributions to the session.