Creative Accumulation: Lessons from Korea's Path out of the Middle Innovation Trap

Creative Accumulation examines how nations build the capabilities required for sustained technological leadership, moving beyond simple catch-up growth.Drawing on Korea's long-term development experience, Jeong-Dong Lee introduces the concept of the "middle innovation trap", a condition in which countries achieve high levels of implementation capability yet struggle to generate original concepts, architectures, and design leadership. The book argues that original concept design is not the product of individual genius or sudden breakthroughs but the outcome of creative accumulation.Creative accumulation requires posing bold question, persistently accumulating trial-and-error experiences, and scaling up from ideas to viable outcomes.Integrating insights from innovation theory, evolutionary economics, and industrial policy, Jeong-Dong Lee shows how these processes of creative accumulation enable nations to become technology leaders. Although the book draws its evidence from the trajectory