Assessing the output and productivity growth of Malaysia’s manufacturing sector

Given the importance of the manufacturing sector in the second-tier newly industrializing economy of Malaysia, this paper uses the stochastic frontier approach to assess the growth potential of this sector. This is performed by first estimating the production function by using panel data comprising 28 manufacturing industries over the period of 1981–1996. Unlike previous studies that used the growth accounting approach, here output growth is not just decomposed into input growth and total factor productivity growth but total factor productivity growth is further decomposed into technological progress and technical efficiency, thereby providing more direction for policy making.     

Farm technology and technical efficiency: Evidence from four regions in China

In this paper we fit stochastic frontier production functions to data of Chinese farms grouped into each of four regions—North, Northeast, East, and Southwest—over 1995–1999. These frontier production functions are shown to have statistically different structures, and the elasticities provide some evidence of diminished marginal products of chemical inputs in the East and capital services in the North and Southwest. Labor has a low elasticity except in the North. Standardized technical efficiency scores are estimated for the farms and are shown to have the same structure across regions and to be related to the age of the household head, land fragmentation, and the village migration ratio, controlling for year effects and village or regional fixed effects.     

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.     

中国粮食生产的技术效率与全要素生产率增长：1978-2008

本文利用1978—2008年间我国30个省市区的面板数据,对改革开放以来我国粮食生产进行了随机前沿分析。以此为基础,对我国粮食生产技术效率进行了影响因素分析,并对粮食生产全要素生产率增长进行分解和趋势分析。结果表明,农业基础设施建设和制度因素是影响我国粮食生产技术效率的关键因素;我国粮食产量增长主要是由投入要素的增长拉动,31年间全要素生产率的平均增长率为1．17％,TFP对我国粮食产量的贡献很小,其原因在于技术进步与技术效率变化呈现相反趋势。2004年以来,技术效率提高的速度持续下降,技术进步逐渐成为TFP增长的主要动力。     

东亚外商直接投资、技术进步与经济均衡增长

本文利用结构关联方法,实证分析1985~2004年东亚吸引外资是否会带来技术进步,并以此推动经济均衡增长。东亚经济均衡增长经历了三次路径转移,技术进步决定经济均衡增长路径的动态调整,但技术进步的作用具有时滞性。东亚需要增强吸收和转换技术的能力。     

Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Productivity Growth: An Examination of the Brynjolfsson–Hitt Proposition

This study investigates what happened to productivity growth during the Information Technology (IT) revolution in an IT-driven economy, Korea. To this end, we have decomposed the source of productivity growth into technological change, technical efficiency and scale economies using a stochastic frontier function and examined how the composition of productivity growth has changed with different phases of IT developments. We have used panel data that is comprised of 4022 firms from 1996 to 2000. We have found that Korean firms have been quick to embrace organizational restructuring to adapt to a new business environment brought about by IT, which seems to be the major source of the success of Korean firms. We have also found that: (i) there is no substantial difference in productivity gains between IT-producing firms and IT-using firms; (ii) productivity growth is more robust to business cycles in an IT-driven economy than in the traditional economy; and (iii) efficiency improvement attributed to organizational transformation plays a greater role in productivity growth as IT applications become more widespread.     

Productivity growth, technological progress, and efficiency change in chinese agriculture after rural economic reforms: A DEA approach

This study applies a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to analyze total factor productivity, technology, and efficiency changes in Chinese agricultural production from 1984 to 1993. Twenty-nine provinces in China were classified into advanced-technology and low-technology categories. The Malmquist (1953) productivity measures were decomposed into two components: technical change index and efficiency change index. The results show that total factor productivity has risen in most provinces for both technology categories during the 1984–1993 period. Technical progress was mostly attributed to Chinese agricultural productivity growth after the rural economic reforms. The deterioration in technical efficiency in many provinces indicates China has great potential to increase productivity through improved technical efficiency. Enhancing rural education and research and development (R&D) in agriculture may also help farmers to improve technical efficiency and productivity in agricultural production.     

Thai manufacturing small and medium sized enterprise technical efficiency: Evidence from firm-level industrial census data

Thai manufacturing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) face intense competition in domestic and foreign markets. Given their importance to the economic development of the country it is important to have a clear understanding of their readiness to face the rigors of international competition, including the barriers and specific problems that they face. This study uses a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and technical inefficiency effects model to analyze the technical efficiency of Thai manufacturing SMEs and key factors impacting upon it. Analysis of cross-sectional data from a 2007 census of Thai manufacturing SMEs indicates that their weighted average technical efficiency is approximately 50 percent, signifying a high level of technical inefficiency which is reducing potential output. The inefficiency effects model reveals that firm size, firm age, skilled labor, ownership characteristics and location are firm-specific factors that significantly affect the technical inefficiency of production. Key measures to improve the technical efficiency of Thai manufacturing SMEs are an adequate supply of inputs, access to credit facilities, extensive infrastructural development and training programs for employees.     

经济增长速度放慢 金融领域危机四伏—当前东亚地区经济与金融形势

目前,在全球经济增长减缓的情势下,东亚地区经济和金融形势不容乐观。本文立足全球,从政治,经济等方面切入,分析了影响亚东地区经济和金融的主要因素,提出了未来一段时期东亚有关国家的经济发展出路。     

Efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture: A regional meta-frontier analysis

This paper utilizes a unique county-level dataset to examine technical efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture. We classify the counties into four regions with distinctive levels of economic development, and hence production technologies. A meta-frontier analysis is used. We find that although the eastern counties have the highest efficiency scores with respect to the regional frontier but the northeastern region leads in terms of agricultural production technology nationwide. Meanwhile, the mean efficiency of the northeastern counties is particularly low, suggesting technology and knowledge diffusion within region might help to improve production efficiency and thus agricultural output.     

The roles of electricity and ICT in economic growth: Case Finland

A quantitative look is taken at electricity and ICT as the engines of economic growth in Finland which was one of the leading countries in the electrification of mechanical drive in industry and which today is one of the leading information societies. It is shown that ICT’s contribution to GDP growth in 1990-2004 was three times as large as electricity’s contribution in 1920-1938. The improvement of multi-factor productivity in production accounted for 60% of ICT’s contribution but only one third of electricity’s. Electricity’s growth contribution was smaller but ICT’s larger than in the United States.     

Higher education,employment and economic growth: Exploring the interactions

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates the impact and nature of South Africa’s post-apartheid economic growth performance through the lens of human capital investment with a particular emphasis on higher education. The South African economy has been characterised by a skills-biased trajectory, ensuring jobs for the better educated. By differentiating between tertiary and vocational training, we find that further education and training (FET) graduates are almost as likely to be employed as school leavers without higher education. We analyse the extent to which the educational attainments of labour affect the nature and trajectory of economic growth in South Africa, by estimating Olley and Pakes’ two-stage regression on a modified Cobb–Douglas production function. The results indicate that the degree cohort contributes to economic growth whilst other higher education institutions, including FET colleges, do not productively contribute to economic growth.     

环境规制、环保投入与中国企业生产率——基于中国企业问卷数据的实证研究

本文利用2006 年12 城市中国企业的调查问卷实证研究了环境规制对企业生产率的影响及机制.研究发现,环境规制及其强度与企业生产率之间存在着稳定、显著的正向关系.这表明中国企业有能力承受更高的环境标准,预示着我国的污染控制政策对企业实现污染减排起到了积极作用;环保投入与生产率实现"双赢",并利用工具变量法处理了环保投入可能具有的内生性是否会导致估计偏误;不同行业、规模和区位的企业面对环境规制,其生产率有不同的表现,表明不同的企业对环境规则带来的压力的消化能力有差异.本文的研究为针对企业的环境规制政策提供了如何操作的微观证据.     

垂直分工、技术转移与东亚区域生产整合:中国视角

本文利用高度细分的贸易数据,在合理分类的基础上分析了中国在东亚区域生产中整合过程的国际分工地位和特点,以及中国高技术产品贸易对外资的高度依赖性,进而总结了东亚生产和贸易模式的变化和中国在新三角贸易中的主导作用。     

The strategies and limits of gentlemanly capitalism: the London East India agency houses, provincial commercial interests, and the evolution of British economic policy in South and South East Asia 1800–50

This article explores the development of the London East India agency houses during the first half of the nineteenth century, and their evolving commercial and political relationships with merchants and manufacturers in the British provinces. It outlines the emergence of pressure groups in Britain concerned with influencing British economic policy in India and the Far East, and their role in shaping policy as the East India Company receded in importance following the Charter Acts of 1813 and 1833. What emerges is a complex picture of collaboration between interest groups in London and the provinces. This challenges and refines aspects of the gentlemanly capitalism thesis of Cain and Hopkins, which emphasizes both the supremacy of London-based financial and mercantile interests in the formation of British policy towards the empire, and the separateness of City-based 'gentlemanly capitalists' from provincial mercantile and industrial interests.     

Editorial: Trade,growth and economic inequality in the Asia-Pacific region

This editorial provides a brief summary of the results of our research project entitled “Trade, Growth and Economic Inequality in the Asia-Pacific Region”, which explores and documents the linkages between international trade and inequality in the Asia-Pacific Region. The project’s eleven research papers find some evidence that trade or FDI contribute to inequality, some evidence that it reduces inequality and some evidence of no causal relationship. These seemingly conflicting results are not at all surprising given the complex relationships involved and the different countries, time periods, and means of measuring inequality, trade and FDI our authors adopted.     

Thirty years of legal and economic reform in China: growth,institutions, and laws

China's impressive economic growth over three decades has seemingly occurred in the absence of a strong legal system. This paper views China's reform process over the past three decades as one that has entailed a gradual introduction of market forces into areas of the economy, which requires both dismantling the structure of the centrally planned economy and developing market-oriented institutions. This paper argues that China's transition is premised on a set of informal, and increasingly formal, institutions that provided incentives during the process of gradual liberalization. Therefore, institutional developments were not absent. The exploration of the interplay between growth and institutions leads to the conclusion that continued economic growth in China will depend on implementing legal reforms better suited to the nature of the decentralized economy, hastened by the introduction of international economic laws and rules with greater global integration.     

The circulating medium of exchange in colonial Pennsylvania, 1729–1775: new estimates of monetary composition, performance, and economic growth

Market transaction data are used to estimate the quantity of specie in circulation. This estimate is used to provide the first comprehensive measure of a colony's money supply and, along with data on population and prices, to retest the quantity theory of money and measure output growth using the equation of exchange. Output growth is found to depend on periodization and the extent that rising commercialization increased the velocity of circulation. Specie was becoming relatively less scarce as the Revolution approached, and movements in specie and paper currency both offset and reinforced each other depending on the period of analysis. (JEL N11, N21, E42, E51)     

Social networks,rule of law and economic growth in China: The elusive pursuit of the right combination of private and public ordering

Social networks have always been an integral part of every society. However, they are different and play a more prominent role in Asian societies. In particular, it will be argued that the relationship of private ordering, networks of relationships, and informal law to formal law are necessary in addition to rule of law for a sustained economic growth. This is evident in how various Asian countries escaped the financial crisis that crippled the region. Rather than an analysis of several different Asian societies, China will be the main focus.