NATIONAL SYSTEM OF INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: A CASE STUDY FROM CHINA

Resumo

This article aims to elucidate the debate between the National Innovation System (SNI) and its interaction with economic development, emphasizing the characteristics that allowed the prosperity of the Chinese economy and how innovations are capable of affecting the institutional organism and the socioeconomic structure of a country. The research is divided into two sections: i) literature review on the emergence and understanding of the national innovation system, and ii) analysis of economic policies, the role of the State and other institutions that collaborated with the national innovation system or national system of learning from China. Data were collected from the year 2000 onwards, emphasizing that the role of technological progress in Chinese economic development tends to be more linked to its institutional transformation than to the abundance of productive factors with low market value. Contrary to what is usually advocated in the conventional literature, the workforce in China represents a small portion of the GDP composition when compared to the other analysis factors. This characteristic reflects on the country’s level of high technology exports, which is a clear indicator of its ability to innovate.