The industry origins of Japanese economic growth

This paper presents new data on the sources of growth for the Japanese economy over the period 1960–2000. The principal innovation is the incorporation of detailed information for individual industries, including those involved in the production of computers, communications equipment, and electronic components as information technology equipment. We show that economic growth is dominated by investments and productivity growth in information technology, both for individual industries and the economy as a whole. We also show that the revival of total factor productivity growth accounts for the modest resurgence of the Japanese economy since 1995. J. Japanese Int. Economies 19 (4) (2005) 482–542.     

The sources of long-term economic growth in Indonesia, 1880-2008

This paper presents new time series estimates of GDP, capital stock and education-adjusted employment, and uses a growth accounting approach to analyze GDP growth during 1880-2008. The growth of capital stock, employment and educational attainment explained almost all of GDP growth. During key growth periods 1900-29 and 1975-97, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth was on balance negative. TFP growth was substantial during some sub-periods, particularly 1933-41, 1951-61, 1967-74 and 2000-08. Each followed a major economic downturn that slowed capital stock growth and required a more efficient use of productive resources, supported by changes in economic policy that enhanced productivity and efficiency.     

Was 19th century British growth steam-powered?: the climacteric revisited

This paper establishes that there are serious problems with the hypothesis that the Victorian climacteric was driven by the decline phase of steam as a General Purpose Technology. This is primarily because steam’s contribution to industrial output and labour productivity growth was stronger after 1870 than before and that the non-steam-intensive sectors exhibited an inverted U-shape in trend output growth through the 19th century, experiencing a marked slowdown between 1830 and the 1870s. Seeking to base an account of 19th century British growth primarily on the implications of steam is thus misconceived.     

The equipment hypothesis and US economic growth

In several articles published in the 1990s, de Long and Summers argued that investment in producer durables had a high propensity to generate externalities in using industries, resulting in a systematic and substantial divergence between its social and private return. They maintained, moreover, that this was not the case for structures investment. Together, these claims constitute the equipment hypothesis. This paper explores the degree to which the history of US economic growth in the 20th century supports it.     

Innovations, technological specialisation and economic growth in the EU

The paper analyses the effects of innovations, technological specialisation and technology diffusion on economic growth and convergence of the EU countries from 1969 to 1998. The empirical analysis is based on a panel data model, which enables us to assess the impacts of these three factors as well as of the usual production factors on long-term economic growth, and to calculate their partial contributions to - and -convergence of labour productivities within the EU. The results show that besides capital accumulation, transferable technical knowledge is a driving force of growth for catching-up EU countries, while it is the level of Ricardian technological specialisation for advanced EU countries.A previous version of the paper was prepared while the author was a Visiting Fellow at the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs, EU Commission. I gratefully acknowledge the stimulating research atmosphere at DG ECFIN and would like to thank Werner Röger and Klaus Wälde for helpful comments. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jürgen Wolters, FU Berlin, for further helpful comments at the workshop for the special issue of this journal in Brussels, February 6–8, 2004.     

Productivity and economic growth in East Asia: innovation, efficiency and accumulation

This paper uses a varying coefficients frontier production function model to examine the sources of growth between 1987 and 1993 in four East Asian economies—Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. Using data for 20 manufacturing sectors at the three-digit SIC level, this study provides the first comprehensive examination of sources of growth that allows one to decompose total factor productivity growth, separating out technical efficiency changes (TECs) from technological progress (TP). We find that while there is ample evidence of the importance of increasing inputs in growth, and there is some support for technical efficiency change, or catching up to the frontier over this period, there is weak or even negative evidence for the role of technological progress, measured as a shift in the estimated production frontier.     

外国直接投资与中国经济增长的实证分析

本文简要介绍了外国直接投资与东道国经济增长的相关理论,并对外国直接投资(FDI)与中国经济增长之间数据关系进行了分析,进而利用协整检验技术,验证外国直接投资与中国经济增长之间是否具有长期的稳定关系。最后给出研究结论和启示。     

Call For Papers: The Eighth International Convention of the East Asian Economic Association

This paper provides empirical estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) trends in a sample of 17 APEC countries over the period 1975 to 1996. TFP growth is an important measure of an economy's performance and if measured correctly it can provide valuable guidance on issues related to the assessment of sustainable growth trends. We use the Malmquist index to measure TFP growth and decompose it into an efficiency change and a technical change component. This decomposition provides extra insight on assessing sustainable growth trends. The measurement technique itself is regarded as a significant improvement over previous conventional measures of TFP growth. The results are very interesting. Japan, Thailand and primarily Indonesia and Malaysia are identified as countries exhibiting on average negative TFP growth rates in the 1975-1990 period. In all these countries as well as in South Korea and Taiwan the main cause of low TFP growth is a poor (negative) efficiency record. The average TFP growth rate for Japan and Malaysia is positive in the 1975-1996 period but the efficiency change component remains negative. In all these countries the main contributor to labour productivity growth is capital accumulation. Unlike previous studies we find no evidence of a poor TFP growth performance for Singapore. Furthermore, we estimate that most of Singapore's labour productivity growth is driven by efficiency change. Estimates of rates of convergence towards the frontier economy that is estimated (not assumed as in other studies) to be the US, are also reported.     

An introduction: the challenges of the Chinese electricity industry and its reform

This introduction is to highlight comprehensively the Chinese electricity industry for issues related to the institutional reform, capacity growth, pricing regime, technology development, supply structure and new investment in upgrading electric power grids. Through reviews of statistics and documentaries, we provide a generally updated understanding of the current development and reform of China’s electric power industry, which is one strategic focus of the Chinese Government for its further reform in the energy sector.     

Efficiency change and growth in productivity: the Asian growth experience

This paper focuses on identifying the sources of productivity growth in ten Asian economies including China, Japan, the NIEs and the ASEAN-4. We calculate productivity growth and its components using distance-function-based Malmquist productivity indexes following Färe, Grosskopf, Norris, and Zhang (1994a). Hong Kong and Singapore are found to have the capabilities to shift the grand frontier of the APEC economies. But the productivity divergence might have occurred since the 70’s. The FDI contributes to the Asian growth either through catching-up or through technological innovations when a sufficient learning capacity is available in the host economy.     

Human capital and economic growth in Spain, 1850–2000

We investigate human capital accumulation in Spain using income- and education-based alternative approaches. We, then, assess human capital impact on labor productivity growth and discuss the implications of its alternative measures for TFP growth. Trends in human capital are similar with either measure but the skill-premium approach fits better Spanish historical experience. As education is a high income elastic good, human capital growth computed with the education-based approach seems upward biased for the recent past. Human capital provided a positive albeit small contribution to labor productivity growth facilitating technological innovation.     

Analysis of regional productivity growth in China: A generalized metafrontier MPI approach

This paper analyzes the dynamics of China's productivity for the period 1996–2004 with a newly developed methodology — generalized metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (gMMPI). Implementing the gMMPI, this paper reviews the inequality of the coastal and non-coastal provinces, as well as the latent impact of scale efficiency change (SEC) for China. Using provincial data for the years 1996–2004, the empirical results are as follows. On average, China demonstrates an annual 3.191% productivity change, which is lower than 4.729% for the conventional MPI and accounts for about 26.508% of output growth over the period 1996–2004. Most of this change is propelled by technical progress, while a fraction is driven by the adjustment in production scale, and the efficiency change has an adverse effect. Furthermore, regional inequality is also found in this empirical work, and the productivity change of the coastal region is actually stronger than that of the non-coastal region. This paper also casts some focus on the China Western Development policy. Indeed, we do not find any outstanding achievement from the policy in the sample period, except that the west region sustained its rate of productivity change after 2000. Moreover, the SEC is found to be trivial in the advanced coastal region, but plays an important role in the relatively laggard non-coastal region. The implication of the positive SEC in the non-coastal region means that China's Western Development policy will improve the scale efficiency and the TFP growth of the west region.     

The “news view” of economic fluctuations: Evidence from aggregate Japanese data and sectoral US data

This paper uses aggregate Japanese data and sectoral US data to explore the properties of the joint behavior of stock prices and total factor productivity (TFP) with the aim of highlighting data patterns that are useful for evaluating business cycle theories. The approach used follows that presented in [Beaudry, P., Portier, F., 2004. News, stock prices and economic fluctuations. Working paper 10548. NBER]. The main findings are that (i) in both Japan and the US, innovations in stock prices that are contemporaneously orthogonal to TFP precede most of the long-run movements in total factor productivity and (ii) such stock prices innovations do not affect US sectoral TFPs contemporaneously, but do precede TFP increases in those sectors that are driving US TFP growth, namely durable goods, and among them equipment sectors. J. Japanese Int. Economies 19 (4) (2005) 635–652.     

知识经济后发劣势、网络外部性标准与我国ICT企业超越策略

在知识经济发展背景下,尤其是在WTO技术贸易环境下,中国ICT企业越来越处于知识经济后发劣势的被动地位,长期处于产业链的低附加值环节,在发达国家及其跨国公司的标准竞争的态势下,中国企业唯有充分利用我们的市场优势和ICT产业融合的机会点发挥超越策略才有成长的可能。文章分析了我国ICT企业超越的机会点和为什么要实施超越策略以及如何实施超越策略。     

Debt and development: The role of foreign capital in economic growth

Capital flows, whether between individuals or nations, are dominated by a two- fold paradox. Borrowers are initially primarily interested in obtaining sufficient funds for their needs, but once they have obtained a loan, their indebtedness becomes their principal concern. While a loan is being negotiated the lenders usually have the upper hand, but once it is made, they become dependent on the borrowers for repayment with interest. Their power to withhold future loans becomes their only real measure of control. Borrowing and lending has costs and benefits, and these balance out only in exceptional cases for both the borrowing and lending countries and the principal social groups within them. The debate about the impact of international capital flows accordingly has a long history. This paper begins with a historical perspective, and then reviews the principal characteristics of capital flows to developing countries since the 1950s. A discussion of the impact of capital flows on development, with a particular emphasis on trends in developing country indebtedness, follows. A brief examination of borrowing and debt management issues for borrowers, lenders and the international community concludes the paper.     

Interindustry effects of productivity growth in Japan: 1960–2000

Combining conventional sectoral growth accounting and the static open input–output price model, we analyze the sources of growth of product prices in Japan during the period 1960–2000. Using the input–output framework, we take into account not only the effects of factor costs and productivity within a sector, but also their impacts outside of the sector. We find that Japan's deflation in the 1990s was characterized by low growth of wage rates, low productivity growth, and a low rate of return on capital. Until 1990, productivity improvements compensated for factor cost pressures on output price, especially the rapid growth of labor cost. In contrast, during the 1990s, decreasing rates of return on capital, not productivity improvements, canceled out the inflationary effect of wage growth. J. Japanese Int. Economies 19 (4) (2005) 568–585.     

The pattern and causes of economic growth in India

This paper presents the broad macro parameters of the growthof the Indian economy since the nation's independence and across-country evaluation of where India stands, drawing outthe patterns discernible in these aggregative statistics. Thepaper gives an overview of the on-going debate on the componentsof the Indian growth and the relative importance of the differentpolicies in the 1980s and 1990s. It contributes to this debateby identifying the landmark years, and analysing the politicsbehind some of the economics. The paper also analyses the factorsbehind the changes in India's savings rate and the relationbetween growth and development, on the one hand, and the natureof labour market regulation, on the other.     

Development of financial intermediation and economic growth: The Chinese experience

Using Chinese provincial data from 1985 to 1999 and applying recent GMM techniques developed for dynamic panels, this paper examines how the development of financial intermediation influences China's economic growth during the post-1978 reform period. Our econometric results show that China's financial intermediation development contributes to its rapid economic growth through two channels: first, the substitution of loans for state budget appropriation and second, the mobilization of household savings. Loan expansion, however, does not contribute to growth since loan distribution by financial intermediaries is inefficient. Deep financial sector reform aimed at correcting this inefficiency is desirable, and is expected to sustain China's economic development in the future.     

The role of savings in economic development the U.S. and Japanese experiences

This paper explores the relationship between savings and growth in the United States and in Japan within a simple Granger causality framework. For Japan, growth caused savings before World War II while after World War II savings caused growth. For the US, growth caused savings after World War II. These results suggest that the savings-growth relationship may depend upon the stage of development.