Bloomberg has compiled its list of the world’s most innovative countries, and South Korea is #2.
Japan came in a #6. Oh, come on, you were wondering it, too.
China came in 29th, just a place above Poland. Singapore, though, placed 7th.
And at #1 was the United States.
Allow me to quote one of the comments at Bloomberg:
Wait a minute, how can an Asian country be listed in the top. I thought Asians were a bunch of robots that learned by rote and can’t otherwise think independently let alone creatively.
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Lot of upset people in that comment section upset that Korea ranked so highly. You’ve possibly opened up another can. It’s just a ranking that should be taken with a grain of salt.
as any expat will tell you, koreans don’t do innovation; they just copy! btw, did you read that samsung will open a billion dollar research center just a couple miles from apple hq? what’s that? yeah, i know, koreans don’t do innovation. or at least, that’s what the expat says.
Korea is place ahead of Japan because;
1. Korea has higher tertiary education ratio mainly because vocational schools (cheon mun dae hak) are included in tertiary education, whereas comparable vocational schools in Japan are excluded.
2. “Manufacturing Capability” is measured by “Manufacturing value-added as a percentage of GDP”. The proportion of manufacturing industry in Japan is smaller than that of Korea because Japan has larger proportion in service industry, which is the case in most post-industrialized countries.
Bloomberg: Where “next” means “previous” and “previous” means “next.” Are Koreans operating that site? Yes, it’s very innovative to change the meanings of words or put strikes before balls.
stereo, ‘tertiary education’ and ‘manufacturing capability’ take only 5% and 10%, respectively in the assessment.
3. Korea has higher patent activity. I guess that’s also another characteristic of being a non-post-industrialized country.
Their methodology explained here
http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-02-01/50-most-innovative-countries.html#slide52
1. Only less than 5% of Korean students are enrolled in vocational
schools. Most Koreans, at least the ones who are the brightest, end up in
universities.
2.
read the bloomberg’s explanation: “products with high R&D
intensity (aerospace, computers pharmaceuticals, scientific instruments
and electrical machinery) as a percentage of total manufactured exports”
These are real high paying industries for advanced economies.
They’re not talking about making toys or shoes.
>Most Koreans, at least the ones who are the brightest, end up in universities.
That is true only if you count a vocational school “cheon mun dae hak” as a university.
40% of Korean students go to universities. Another 40% go to “cheon mun dae hak”.
stereo,
Here is some friendly advice. Do you ever think that your attitude of discounting an opponent and his capabilities may actually be detrimental to Japan’s cause? Japan needs reform and revival. Can we both agree upon that? Does it help of you and Japan if you keep making excuses for how Japan’s competitors are surpassing it in some categories?
Personally, I believe Japan is ranked too low on this list. I think they should be ranked at least 4th.
i think the vast majority of these expats couldn’t qualify for the jobs available to Americans in America by Korean companies (especially in some place like Silicon Valley).
I am tired of a country on the move like South Korea being judged by people who barley graduated from Lutheran Polytechnic State Community College.
Here are some other innovation lists. The difference with Bloomberg’s is that it seems to be favoring bigger countries instead of city states like Singapore, Switzerland and Denmark.
INSEAD ranks Korea # 21, but their ranking system favors small countries over bigger ones:
http://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii/main/analysis/rankings.cfm#CGI.SCRIPT_NAME#
But Businessweek ranks South Korea # 2:
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/03/0312_innovative_countries/1.htm
He’s still stuck in 1995, symptomatic of whole of Japan itself. It doesn’t bother me. Just let him be.
I think the Bloomberg ranking is just for laughs, shouldn’t be taken seriously, like stereo is taking. But Oh, the Yen devaluation won’t help Japan (other than in auto and machinery).
The Won’s climb should be a welcome relief, and should not effect Korea’s competitiveness.
Wow, xenophobia. That’s innovative.
Not xenophobia. Stupidphobia. I’m afraid America is exporting it’s stupid people. But what’s stupider? The stupid people or Korea actually accepting them? Sometimes I wonder.
And in what country is Apple’s HQ located?
> keep making excuses
Call it analysis.
>Japan needs reform and revival.
I do not see Japan needs any reform. In 1990s, a lot of Americans were pessimistic about their future. Some said America needs to change, but it did not. That is why it is in a good condition right now. Korea is going to have good days for 2 years. But Korea will have a financial crisis then due to cyclicality of the economy.
Oh, brother. Japan is lost if it is full of people like you who don’t want to up their game.
Hahahahahahaha Japan doesn’t need reform…..my day was just made
Hey i deserve a hat tip i linked the story first on the open thread
ps it’s interesting how India is not in the ranking
The point here is “innovation”. How creative Koreans are to come up with something new? IMO, Korean products have been competing on price only not innovativeness. While Sony became a household name through innovations such as the transistor radio, the Walkman and CD, Samsung became competitive because they adopted existing technologies and sold cheap copies of Western and Japanese products. I haven’t seen any ground-breaking innovation from Korean companies yet. Korea’s ratio of R&D spending to GDP is very high, but the low ratio of essential patents to total patent filings suggests low R&D productivity.
“Korea Has Only 1/5 of Japan’s, 1/9 of U.S.’ Essential Patents”
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/10/11/2012101101206.html
The number of essential patents held by Korean businesses and research institutes amounts to just one-ninth of those held by the U.S. and one-fifth of those held by Japan. The figures refer only to patents are deemed essential in making certain products.
According to Democratic Party lawmaker Oh Young-sik on Wednesday, a total of 365 such patents were registered with the International Organization for Standardization and other IT patent agencies as of June this year. But the U.S. had 3,256 and Japan 1,754, Finland 1,754, France 1,210 and Germany 483.
The chief concern for Korea is that its lack of such patents widened the deficit in the technological trade balance due to royalty payments. The deficit rose from US$2.9 billion (US$1=W1,115) in 2006 to $6.9 billion in 2011.
Not sure how opening a research centre close to a company you have been found guilty of ripping off qualifies as ‘innovative’.
Perhaps not understanding the term explains a lot of the confusion and lawsuits that surround Korean ‘innovation’
Btw the service sector in Japan is horrible and absolutely uncompetitive
Have you ever lived in Japan?
Jeju chosen as one of New 7 Wonders of Nature.
South Korea ranked #2 for innovation worldwide.
My goodness, what’s next?
Here, take one thumbs-up in lieu of a hat tip.
Psy as “Man of the Year”.
There you have it. Good one!
No but i dealt extensively with their retailers, restaurants, hotels, importers, exporters, etc. and the experience ranged from goofy to pathetic.
That’s ok, you think Japan is the most wonderful country in the world and need no reform, now that i think about it after all who would want to change the most expensive country on earth with third world-like supplies of food and millions of barely heated, poorly wired plywood shacks comprising most of the real estate ? Ganbare Enjoy it !!
It’s more fallacious thinking on several levels than xenophobia, although there is a prickly nationalism behind it: focusing not on the argument but on the assumed academic background of the assumed opponent, assuming that Korea does or should care what anonymous people on blogs think about it, and implying that think tanks and smart people are automatically going to produce views that are more palatable to Korea. That Lisa on the Bloomberg thread was instantly labelled a “Japan apologist” by our WangKon when she was in fact quoting Korean politicians and media reports lamenting the actual state of affairs with patents and tech trade deficits. Keep emotion in check and focus on what you do best. Level-headedness and cool reason is what usually separates you from the pawis and Qs of this space.
“smart people are automatically going to produce views that are more palatable to Korea”
Wrong, wrong and wrong. Smart people, when they criticize (or praise) something, will do so with reason and logic. I like reading well thought out analysis, regardless of position. Dumb people, on the other hand, will bend logic and warp it to suit their personal preferences to make up for their perceived short comings.
I am starting to have very little patience to the brand of Japan apologist that has their head stuck in the sand because that is the last thing Japan needs right now. You may not know this, but I actually care about Japan, but I care more about this Japan:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2011/03/17/praise-for-japans-civil-order-in-the-worldwide-press/
vs. this Japan:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2011/02/01/more-on-japan-inc-s-iminent-collapse/
It has always been my opinion that in order for Japan to come out of the death spiral that it is in is to be honest with their weaknesses rather than pretend they still have their pre-1995 strengths.
Just remember, it was Japan that had the reputation of copycat in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Americans used to bitch about it a lot. You’re just lucky you guys had a leg up and now have put that reputation behind you.
Congrats, streo, Tokyo topped the most expensive cities to live in 2013 (Economist). Osaka ranked the second. Uncle Abe’s cheap yen policy works!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/worlds-most-expensive-city-2013_n_2622389.html
For the reference, Seoul ranked the 37th, which is hard to believe.
Tokyo ranked at the top because of strong yen. It will lose several notches next year due to weakening yen.
>For the reference, Seoul ranked the 37th, which is hard to believe for me.
That is because won is way undervalued from purchasing power parity.
Indeed. Not implausible.
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