TY - JOUR AU - Arora, Asish AU - Gambardella, Alfonso TI - The Globalization of the Software Industry: Perspectives and Opportunities for Developed and Developing Countries JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 10538 PY - 2004 Y2 - June 2004 DO - 10.3386/w10538 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10538 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10538.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Ashish Arora Fuqua School of Business Duke University Box 90120 Durham, NC 27708-0120 Tel: 919 660 7746 Fax: 919 684-2818 E-Mail: ashish.arora@duke.edu Alfonso Gambardella Department of Management and Technology Bocconi University Via Roentgen 1 20136 Milan Italy Tel: +39-02-58363706 Fax: +39-02-58363391 E-Mail: alfonso.gambardella@unibocconi.it M1 - published as Ashish Arora, Alfonso Gambardella. "The Globalization of the Software Industry: Perspectives and Opportunities for Developed and Developing Countries," in Adam B. Jaffe, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, editors, "Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 5" The MIT Press (2005) AB - The spectacular growth of the software industry in some non-G7 economies has aroused both interest and concern. This paper addresses two sets of inter-related issues. First, we explore the determinants of these successful stories. We then touch upon the broader question of what lessons, if any, can be drawn from for economic development more generally. Finally, examining the long term implications of offshoring of software, we conclude that it is unlikely to pose a long term threat to American technological leadership. Instead, the U.S. economy will broadly benefit from the growth of new software producing regions. The U.S. technological leadership rests in part upon the continued position of the U.S. as the primary destination for highly trained and skilled scientists and engineers from the world over. Though this is likely to persist for some time the increasing attractiveness of foreign emerging economy destinations is a long-term concern for continued U.S. technological leadership. ER -