Taiwan's high-tech industry at the turn of the century

Abstract

The phenomenal advances in economic growth recently are commonly attributed to the effects of men's ability to massively apply technology and knowledge. The superior performance has not only created new business opportunities, but also significantly changed the way business is done, and the way people work and live. We have witnessed rapid change in output increase and structure, which is echoing Simon Kuznets observation that “modern economic growth could best be viewed as a process based on a change which raises greatly the stock of technological and social knowledge... When the ...knowledge is used, it becomes the source of increase in output and structural shifts that characterize modern economies." The high-tech industries can be broadly defined, as countries have their own definition. Fundamentally, science is driven by the desire for intelligence and truth and out of curiosity, while technology, though applying scientific axioms and laws, aims at practical research whose output can be used. High-tech industry can then be defined as industries in which science and technology plays a key role in production. We may further define the industry from the input side or the output side. Two input indicators: the ratio of research and development (R&D) spending to the sales of products and the ratio of science and technology employees to total work force of the industry, can be used to define high-tech industry. For example, the United States (U.S.) high-tech industry are industries whose indicators are higher than 10%.