No. 2025-01 - Technological progress at national level: Increasing diffusion speeds with ever-changing leaders and followers

Abstract:

Understanding national-level technology adoption is critical for addressing economic, societal, and environmental challenges. This study analyzes 27 technology datasets with good temporal and regional coverage to understand national-level technology diffusion, and identifies the logistic S-curve as a robust, parsimonious model for capturing adoption patterns. We show that technology adoption speeds have increased over time, especially in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). While early-adopting countries (leaders) often have slower diffusion, later adopters (followers) benefit from imitation and de-risking, supporting a national-level “fast-follower” hypothesis. Structural factors also shape these outcomes: adoption speed grows with GDP growth but falls with population size; technology leadership is influenced by GDP per capita, government effectiveness, distance to a technology’s inventor, and population size. Our findings reinforce established theories while providing new insights into cross-country variation, shifting adoption sequences, and increasingly rigid country rankings, particularly in ICT. This evidence helps policymakers and researchers better understand technology diffusion and can inform strategies that guide technological progress.