Technology choice and change in developing countries

The papers included in this volume were originally presented at a symposium at the 1980 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Papers at the symposium were roughly divided into two categories: those presenting preliminary findings from active research on technological behaviour by organizations (presented in Part I of this volume); and papers discussing the importance of considering environmental effects in selecting and developing technologies (presented in Part II).

Part I consists of three papers which discuss some findings of recent research on the determinants of choice of technology by organizations in developing countries. These papers are based on research funded by the National Science Foundation to examine the question of technology choice in developing countries. The Foundation's basic objective was to encourage research which stepped outside of the traditional focus on factor prices to develop and test theoretical frameworks for examining technology choice in an organizational context.'

In the first of these studies, Ranis and Saxonhouse (Chapter 1) examine differences in the technological behaviour of Indian and Japanese cotton textile firms in the 19th and 20th centuries and attempt to move beyond simple factor price differences in explaining comparative technological performance. They find that factor price differences and tariff policies were of limited relevance in explaining the markedly different technological behaviour of the Indian and Japanese industries. Rather, the most promising explanations of the industries' different responses to technological opportunities were in the institutional and organizational environments faced by firms in the two countries, which in turn affected the extent of workably competitive pressure faced by firm decision-makers. The paper written by Gotsch and McEachron (Chapter 2) is also

concerned with the impact of government policies and the environments of the firm on the willingness and ability of entrepreneurs to use and adapt more or less appropriate technology. The authors begin by developing a systems model of technology choice. This model is used to examine various components of technological choice and change and to design a representative firm model. The systems model and the firm model are applied empirically to the problem of developing and choosing agricultural machinery in the Pakistan Punjab, The authors examine the technology supplied from both the private and public sectors. They also examine the demand for technology and the linkages between suppliers and users. Next they apply the analytical framework to the generation and choice of agricultural machinery in the Pakistan Punjab to illustrate the potential interaction between the public and private sectors in the generation and diffusion of technology and to emphasize the dynamic character of technology choices in general. Finally they discuss the desirability of focusing future research on linkages and inducement mechanisms on the supply side and provide specific examples.

The Svejnar and Thorbecke paper (Chapter 3) focusses on the design and application of a decision-making model in an attempt to explain the technology choice process through the interaction of different agents. They specify a methodology (social accounting matrix) which can be used to explore and compare the effects of certain technology choices on such macroeconomic objectives as aggregate output, income distribution, and the balance of payments. The possibility of using this approach to identify products (and associated technologies) whose development would benefit particular target groups is also examined. The decision-making model moves from a single actor, single-goal (profit maximization) model of technology choice to the development of a more realistic multi-actor, multi-goal model where the choice of technology is arrived at through a complex process of bargaining.

Part II begins with a brief introduction by Freedman on the important interrelationships between technological development and the longer term environmental consequences of technological change. His introduction sets the stage for the remaining chapters which stress the importance of including environmental considerations in planning technological development.

The Biswas' paper (Chapter 4) provides a general overview of the problems associated with rationalizing economic development and environ mental costs. The authors introduce the topic by presenting a brief narrative history of increasing international concern over environmental protection which led among other things to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Then, in the final section of the chapter, the authors use the development of the Aswan Dam as a case study from which to illustrate tradeoffs between regional economic development and environmental preservation. The recurring theme presented in this chapter is that development is so closely interrelated with the state of the environment that environmental considerations must be explicitly considered in order for countries to achieve long-term economic growth.

In Chapter 5, Crosson extends the treatment of technology choice by focusing on one form of social cost arising from private decisions about the use of technology. In particular he addresses the problem of controlling environ mental damage which results from agricultural production in developing countries, and he considers possible strategies to ensure that environmental costs are included in decisions by farmers and other resource managers. The control of environmental costs is addressed from the twin perspectives of the development of control technologies and the adoption of these technologies by potential users. Crosson suggests that a great deal is known about the techniques for controlling environmental consequences of agricultural produc tion; the difficulty lies in influencing their adoption. Producers are not bearing the environmental costs and, thus, have very little incentive to reduce them.

Traditional approaches to the control of environmental costs of agricultural production are classified into two types-regulatory and incentives approaches. After discussing the problems of equity and implementation associated with these two approaches, Crosson suggests an alternative strategy which he terms the "new technologies strategy". This strategy relies on the "development of new technologies which are at least as attractive to the farmer as those he now employs and which generate significantly lower environmental costs". While the author acknowledges that this strategy could not reduce environmental costs in all cases, it does constitute an improvement over regulatory and incentive strategies in terms of both equity and implementation. Perhaps its major problem is that the development of a "new technologies strategy" is reliant on the environmental sensitivity of public agencies which fund research on agricultural technologies.

The Freedman paper (Chapter 6) focusses on four methods of food. production used in developing countries over the last several decades and their respective costs in terms of energy use. Specifically Freedman analyzes the energy efficiency of traditional labour-intensive, capital-intensive and experi mental practices in rice cultivation and uses these analyses as a foundation for suggesting specific planning strategies for food production in developing countries. Freedman suggests that by comparing the energy efficiency of individual operations in production methods, it is possible to modify these operations in ways which will increase yields without reducing overall efficiency.