Science in the developing world: running twice as fast?

Physicists are increasingly interested in studying the behavior of financial markets; likewise, researchers have applied statistical physics tools to study economic development in - and interactions among - various countries. We recently introduced a model that creates an artificial world economy of countries, each of which has a population with scientific and technological capabilities. The model's main goal is to probe the underlying mechanisms responsible for the interactions among science, technology, and development. So far, it has shown a strong correlation between economic development and scientific and technological production.