Research, Development and Innovation in Malaysia: Elements of an Effective Growth Model

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between research and development activities in Malaysia and the country's economic growth record. In particular, the paper lays out the changes in the growth model Malaysia adopted to make the transformation from an agriculture-based to a technology-based economy, thereby moving up the value chain. Notwithstanding data sparsity, this paper makes an effort to quantitatively examine the relationship between research and development and innovation activities in Malaysia by running simple linear regressions and multiple regressions to capture the impact of these variables on the GDP per capita variations. The paper notes that Malaysia has managed to achieve significant progress in its development efforts and in transforming its economy from an agrarian-based economy into a more diversified economy with a greater role for knowledge intensive activities, research and development, and innovation. Concluding that R&D and science and technology indicators have been associated with economic development indicators, the study proposes that further research be conducted to gauge the role of public sector intervention as well as the business sector R&D and innovative activities separately, and preferably at the sectoral level, where data would probably be more available than at the national level. This paper contributes to the understanding of the economic growth models which are continuously changing as technological change renders the traditional models deficient. Research and development activities have proven to be effective in generating growth and the Malaysian experience could be presented as a growth model for other Asian countries.