International Specialization Dynamics

5Economic Dominance Theory and Intra- and Inter-Regional Flow of Technological Knowledge

5.1. Introduction

This chapter presents a series of methods derived from the economic dominance theory [LAN 13, LAN 15] applied to the analysis of inter- and intra-regional flow of technological knowledge. According to the EDT, “it is equally appropriate to conceive the economic world as a system of visible or hidden relationships between the dominant and dominated as well as a system of relationships amongst equals” [PER 48]. To date, this theory has devoted most of its efforts to measuring “domination effects”.¹ From an empirical point of view, the EDT was first interested in dominance and interdependence relationships between the productive sectors of a national economy [LAN 74]. It is [LAN 13] who first orientated the EDT towards the study of influences at the heart of international economic relations, that is, the “inequality dynamics” [PER 48] exercised by the dominant economy, which “by its own activities, and without any premeditated plan, influences other economies which have been reduced to an adaptation action” (p. 266).

This chapter associates dominance with the exchange of technological knowledge between regions. The purpose of using the EDT in this new field not only lies in expanding François Perroux’s initial project, an expansion that will consist of associating a cognitive dimension of inter-regional dominance alongside its productive and commercial dimension. It also ...