Identifying ‘Super-Technology’ Industries

Pharmaceuticals, software, telecoms, biotech, and semiconductors are both top spenders on RD they are of interest because of their strong economic performance. Two metrics for identifying high-technology industries are: research intensity (total RD a high proportion of employees have university degrees and/or are professional staff; and the business activity is concentrated in advanced technology, on the cutting edge of technology developments. For the first criterion, Baruch proposed that the ratio of RD "make existing technology obsolete" and "revolutionize markets" (6); and "cutting edge of technology developments" (1). This simple definition also eliminates the need, in the first instance, to consider some concepts that can be quantified without extreme difficulty. For example, some authors have proposed that one criterion for being labeled high technology is that an industry have above-average growth. …