Mexico stands at a pivotal moment in its economic development. Decades of integration into global value chains have yielded a sizeable manufacturing base and important productive capabilities across automotive, aerospace, electronics, medical devices, and advanced agroindustry. Yet this productive breadth has not translated into sustained productivity gains, endogenous innovation, or broader processes of capability building. Substantial assets coexist with weak technological accumulation. Mexico suffers from two compounding failures: (i) an inability to absorb and transfer foreign technology, and (ii) an inability to commercialise domestically generated knowledge. Both, this research brief argues, stem from the absence of institutions designed to govern technological learning.
A substantial body of scholarship on economic catch-up has focused on the coordinating institutions of industrial policy. Far less attention has been devoted to the distinct institutional question of how countries become efficient technological learners, and the institutional features that govern the transfer, absorption, and commercialisation of knowledge. Yet this dimension is equally foundational to catch-up. This research brief addresses that gap directly, with an explicit focus on institutional design.
Drawing on the historical experiences of Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the brief distils the institutional logic behind successful catching-up. On this basis, it proposes a concrete institutional vehicle — Technological Learning Accelerators (TLAs) — and sets out ten design principles for their implementation in the Mexican context..