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.     

Technology and the great divergence: Global economic development since 1820

The paper measures productivity growth in seventeen countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. GDP per worker and capital per worker in 1985 US dollars were estimated for 1820, 1850, 1880, 1913, and 1939 by using historical national accounts to back cast Penn World Table data for 1965 and 1990. Frontier and econometric production functions are used to measure neutral technical change and local technical change. The latter includes concurrent increases in capital per worker and output per worker beyond the highest values achieved. These increases were pioneered by the rich countries of the day. An increase in the capital-labor ratio was usually followed by a half century in which rich countries raised output per worker at that higher ratio. Then the rich countries moved on to a higher capital-ratio, and technical progress ceased at the lower ratio they abandoned. Most of the benefits of technical progress accrued to the rich countries that pioneered it. It is remarkable that countries in 1990 with low capital labor ratios achieved an output per worker that was no higher than countries with the same capital labor ratio in 1820. In the course of the last two hundred years, the rich countries created the production function of the world that defines the growth possibilities of poor countries today.     

基于技能偏向性技术进步的经济增长动能分解

在传统Solow增长核算框架基础上引入异质性劳动投入以及技能偏向性技术进步,从而将经济增长分解为固定资本投入增长、劳动投入增长、技能结构深化、技能偏向性技术进步、中性技术进步及效率改进等五种动能。研究发现：第一,中国经济增长主要由固定资本投入以及全要素生产率增长共同驱动,其中资本投入对经济增长年均贡献率为61.64%,全要素生产率增长的年均贡献率则为35.66%,中国区别于其他中低收入国家的发展奇迹背后正是较快的全要素生产率增长;第二,即使对于高收入国家而言,资本投入仍然是主要的经济增长动能;第三,技能结构深化以及技能偏向性技术进步是全要素生产率的主要来源,二者对中国经济增长的年均贡献率分别为32.04%和21.27%;第四,资源配置效率变化是引起全要素生产率波动的主要因素,资源配置效率下降是导致2008年后中国以及大部分高收入国家全要素生产率增速放缓的主要原因。     

中国经济如何跨越中高等收入陷阱

我国2010年人均GDP已经突破3945美元,根据世界银行对世界各经济体的最新分类标准,我国已经步入中高等收入国家行列,但与此同时我国的收入差距不断拉大。如何将收入差距控制在合理范围内,成功地跨越中高等收入陷阱是当前的紧要问题。本文通过对我国人均GDP及其基尼系数的协整检验发现,我国经济增长与收入分配之间存在一种稳定的长期均衡关系。只有合理的处理我国的收入分配差距问题才能达到经济的持续发展,从而跨越高中等收入陷阱。     

Economic Convergence in the African Continent: Closing the Gap

The paper attempts to analyse the conditional β‐convergence and its sources for 32 African countries over the period 1960‐2008. The augmented Solow model with both gross domestic product (GDP) per worker and per capita income is estimated using the dynamic system generalized methods of moments (GMM) technique with the panel data. This is the first study on the sources of conditional β‐convergence for African countries. According to the results of the augmented Solow model, income convergence rates are lower than those of GDP per worker. Moreover, total factor productivity convergence, human capital convergence and capital labour convergence are contributing towards the convergence of GDP per worker in Africa. This means that growth in the poorest African countries is being augmented by “catch‐up factor,” which is good news for them. However, convergence in terms of GDP per worker is not being fully translated into income per capita convergence. The demographic structure in the African continent with its record of persistent population growth has played an important role in lowering the income convergence of its countries.     

Estimating international technology spillovers using technology flow matrices

Estimating International Technology Spillovers Using Technology Flow Matrices. — This paper investigates the impact of international R &; D spillovers on sectoral growth patterns in OECD countries. It applies panel regression techniques to a time-series cross-section panel. It arrives at the conclusion that knowledge spillovers are an important contributor to economic growth. The estimation results are applied in the form of a ‘simulation’ of TFP growth per country, splitting (R &; D-related) TFP into a component due to domestic R &; D and one due to foreign R &; D. The results also show that the United States and Germany are the most influential countries in terms of contributions to other countries’ TFP growth.     

Indonesia's Ascent on the Technology Ladder: Capital Stock and Total Factor Productivity in Indonesian Manufacturing, 1975–95

This paper presents new capital stock estimates for mium and large-scale manufacturing in Indonesia using the Perpetual Inventory Method. Capital stock grew gradually during 1975–88, at an annual rate of 7.6%, then boomed during 1989–95 at 13.6% per annum. Growth accounting shows that 60% of the rapid growth of manufacturing output during the period 1975–95 was due to capital input growth, 18% to labour input growth and the remaining 22% to total factor productivity (TFP) growth. There is no evidence of a shift of factor inputs towards more efficient industries. TFP growth averaged 3% annually in 1975–95. Performance varied greatly across industries, but the policy changes that have taken effect since 1986 have definitely been beneficial for all industries. Put in an international perspective, however, Indonesia's TFP levels show no signs of catch-up with the world frontier.     

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.     

我国各要素对经济增长贡献率的实证研究

文章采用1978～2007年的数据,用索洛余值法分析各要素对经济增长的影响情况,将我国的经济增长分解为资本投入的贡献,劳动力投入的贡献,全要素生产率的贡献。实证表明:我国总产出中资本投入的贡献最大,年均达到57%;全要素生产率的贡献较大,对总产出的贡献达到28%;劳动力投入的贡献最小,只有15%左右。     

中国产业结构与经济增长研究：1990-2012

全要素生产率是分析经济增长源泉的重要工具,文章通过使用与前人不同的方法计算出1990-2012年中国三次产业全要素生产率,发现中国经济历年来主要靠第二产业全要素生产率拉动,但是2009年以后第三产业全要素生产率开始超越第二产业,成为经济增长的主要拉动因素。此外,文章计算出三次产业资本边际产出比重,从中可以看出我国应当调整投资在产业间的分配以提高资本效率。最后,通过产业结构与三次产业就业关系的研究发现,第三产业就业人数增加能够促进第三产业产值占国内生产总值的比重。     

Does information technology raise Japan's productivity?

A standard growth accounting exercise indicates that, after Japan's “lost decade,” its overall total-factor-productivity (TFP) growth has increased notably since 2000. This productivity revival has been limited, however, to information technology (IT) production—has not been a broad-based productivity acceleration like that seen in the United States after the mid-1990s. This paper examines the relationship between IT and productivity gains by employing the “augmented” growth accounting framework for Japanese industry-level data from 1975 through 2005. In particular, we estimate “purified” technology change at industry level by accounting for cyclical mismeasurement of inputs. We find that the post-2000 increase in overall TFP growth does indeed appear to arise from an increase in technological change. Furthermore, the pickup in technology growth has occurred not only in the production of IT but also in the industries that use IT intensively. Our results suggest the possibility that stories of IT as a general purpose technology (GPT) could apply to Japan as well as to the United States.     

Economic growth and income inequality in the Asia-Pacific region: A comparative study of China,Japan, South Korea,and the United States

This paper builds an inequality-growth-redistribution nexus, and applies the Engle–Granger two-step ECM approach to estimate the long-run and short-run relationships between inequality and growth for four economies: China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Our estimation results support the S-shaped curve hypothesis relating GDP per capita to inequality with different starting points for the four economies. For the reverse relationship, we find a positive causal relationship for China, Japan, and the United States, indicating that increased income inequality spurred economic growth. In addition, we find mixed results on the effect of trade openness on inequality and growth. Trade openness reduced inequality in the United States and Japan, worsened it in China and had no significant effect in South Korea. In the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, exports provided an impetus to economic growth for Japan. As for redistribution, although fiscal redistributive measures reduced inequality in Japan, they played no major role in the other three countries. With regard to the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, all countries except for China show a negative effect of fiscal redistribution on GDP per capita.     

Capital deepening and the rise of the factory: the American experience during the nineteenth century1

Between 1850 and 1880, capital per worker in United States manufacturing increased on average by at least 75 per cent, even after taking account of declining capital goods prices. During this same period, production shifted from small, labour‐intensive artisan shops to large capital‐intensive factories. Similar changes have occurred in many other countries at the same stage of industrialization. Establishment‐level data from the federal censuses of manufacturing, however, reveal that the shift in production in the United States accounts for a modest amount of the increased capital per worker. There, at least, capital deepening seems to have occurred in almost all firms everywhere.     

Growth accounting for a technology follower in a world of ideas: The case of Singapore

We account for the sources of Singapore's growth by being explicit about the channels through which Singapore benefits from international R&D spillovers. We find that 61.5% of Singapore's real GDP per worker growth over the 1970–2004 period is due to multifactor productivity growth. More specifically, 52.1% of the growth is explained by an increase in the effectiveness of accessing ideas through improvement in Singapore's educational quality as well as increases in machinery imports and foreign direct investment from the G5 countries. Taking account of technology transfer raises the average rate of return to capital to 12.5%.     

What are China's real gains within global value chains? Measuring domestic value added in China's exports of manufactures

This paper aims to investigate China's gains of participating in global value chains (GVCs) in terms of GDP in exports (DVA - domestic value added) and the factors affecting China's gains. The paper decomposes the gross exports of China so as to get the components that make up total GDP in the exports of the country, namely the value-added exports and DVA that are returned from abroad. Then the two components are measured to obtain the scale of GDP in China's exports both on country and sector level. The results show that, firstly, both value-added exports and the GDP in China's exports are less than the traditional gross trade statistics, indicating that there is a gap of real trade gains under GVCs. Secondly, comparing whether the proportion of DVA in total exports, the proportion of DVA in exports of manufactures or the proportion of RDV in total DVA, the gaps between China and the developed countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan do exist. Especially, considering the RDV of China, the proportion is significantly lower than that of major developed countries such as the United States and Germany, indicating that China lags far behind developed countries in the capabilities of supplying high value-added intermediate goods. Lastly, the empirical results suggest that DVA in China's exports has progressively increased in response to the productivity enhancement; research and development (R&D) inputs and capital formation, and the synergies between R&D and vertical specialization affect China's DVA growth in exports positively.     

Does the productivity J-curve exist in Japan?-Empirical studies based on the multiple q theory

Brynjolfsson, Rock, and Syverson (2021) argued that the standard TFP growth is low during an investment boom for new technology such as the IT revolution. As the new capital is operated and productivity improves, the shape of the movements in the standard productivity growth resembles a J-curve. However, when costs associated with investment for new technology are recognized as intangible investment - which is not counted in the conventional value added –, the revised TFP growth including these unmeasured intangibles show different movements from the standard TFP growth. Following Brynjolfsson, Rock, and Syverson (2021), we examine the gap between the standard TFP growth and the revised TFP growth. According to their theory, unmeasured intangibles are estimated by the gap between the shadow value and the price of investment goods. We obtain this shadow value of investment through an estimated parameter in each asset using listed firm-level data and revise the standard TFP growth rate. In the case of all industries, the standard TFP growth is overestimated in most years in the late 1990s and the 2000s, because the growth in intangible investment associated with measured investment is lower than measured capital accumulation rate. When we focus on the IT-intensive industries, we find the productivity J-curve in the late 1990s, at the early stage of the IT revolution, as indicated by Brynjolfsson, Rock and Syverson (2021).     

Is working capital management value-enhancing through alleviating financial constraints? Evidence from Chinese non-listed firms

Financial factors have been found highly important in influencing firms’ real activities and in promoting aggregate growth. Yet, the linkage between finance and firm-level total factor productivity (TFP) has been overlooked in the literature. I fill this gap using 147,310 non-listed Chinese firms over the period 1999–2007 to estimate a TFP model augmented with working capital. I find that TFP is strongly and significantly associated with working capital for private and foreign firms, but not for SOEs. More specifically, an increase in working capital has a negative (positive) effect on TFP in firms with positive (negative) working capital. Furthermore, highly external financial constrained, highly internal financial constrained, under-developed institutional regions and small size private and foreign firms are more sensitive to working capital.     

Technological catch-up or resource rents?

This paper studies contribution of capital deepening, technological progress and efficiency improvement to economic growth while focusing on cross-country data, and thus finds itself at the crossroads of growth and development accounting. We take a production frontier approach to growth accounting and choose DEA as the frontier estimation method. To explore the effects that windfall gains from natural resource use have on growth, output data are corrected for pure natural resource rents—part of GDP figures not earned by either labor or capital. Taking into account countries’ natural resources, we find that in the two decades from 1970 to 1990 the average contribution of technological catch-up to per worker output growth was, if anything, negative on the worldwide scale and this trend continued till the mid 1990ies. Analysis of efficiency estimates also shows a possible change over the period of 1970–1990 in the effect of natural resources on country’s performance     

ICT and Productivity Growth in the United Kingdom

This paper develops new estimates of investment in and outputof information and communication technology (ICT). These newestimates imply that GDP growth has been significantly understated,particularly since 1994. A growth-accounting approach is employedto measure the contribution of ICT to the growth of both aggregateoutput and aggregate input. On both counts, the contributionof ICT has been rising over time. From 1989 to 1998, ICT outputcontributed a fifth of overall GDP growth. Since 1989, 55 percent of capital deepening (the growth of capital per hour worked)has been contributed by ICT capital; since 1994 this proportionhas risen to 90 per cent. ICT capital deepening accounts for25 per cent of the growth of labour productivity over 1989–98and 48 per cent over 1994–8. But even when output growthis adjusted for the new ICT estimates, both labour productivityand TFP growth are still found to slow down after 1994.     

Competitiveness of China's Manufacturing Industry and its Impacts on the Neighbouring Countries

This paper investigates the rapid growth of China's share in the international commodity market and the structural changes of China's commodity exports. It demonstrates a significant improvement of international competitiveness in China's manufacturing sector. The panel data analysis, based on a Solow–Swan type growth model on China's 37 manufacturing industries from 1991 to 2002, reveals that the main sources of the strengthened competitiveness of China's manufacturing sector have been mainly from Total Factor Productivity (TFP), while labour productivity has been increasing and capital productivity has been falling. A preliminary empirical analysis on the impacts of China's increasing competitiveness finds that there are negative correlations between China and most of its neighbouring countries, both newly industrialised economies and other Southeast Asian developing economies. However, there is no evidence of negative impacts of China's increasing competitiveness on developed countries such as the United States and Japan.