The Research Imperative

Abstract

The future of Japan’s economy, for better or for worse, depends on the research output of Japan’s scientists and engineers. Japanese industry is now at rough parity with the best of the world in technology — ahead in some sectors, lagging in others, as would be expected. Economic growth has depended on a steady and rather rapid shift of industry to everhigher levels of value added. As labor-intensive industry moves off-shore, as the economies of Taiwan and Korea and eventually of China become fully competitive in established sectors, as Japan’s limited labor force must move to highly sophisticated manufacture and services, all progress comes to be a function of R&D.