Productivity Growth,Human Capital and Technology Spillovers: Nonparametric Evidence for EU Regions

This paper assesses the strength of productivity spillovers nonparametrically in a data set of 12 industries and 231 NUTS2 regions in 17 European Union member countries between 1992 and 2006. It devotes particular attention to measuring the catching up through spillovers depending on the technology gap of a unit to the industry leader and the local human capital endowment. We find evidence of a nonlinear relationship between the technology gap to the leader as well as human capital and growth in logs. Spillovers are smallest for units with a medium‐high technology gap to the leader, especially for regions where human capital endowments are low.     

Solving the multi-country real business cycle model using a Smolyak-collocation method

We describe a sparse-grid collocation method to compute recursive solutions of dynamic economies with a sizable number of state variables. We show how powerful this method can be in applications by computing the non-linear recursive solution of an international real business cycle model with a substantial number of countries, complete insurance markets and frictions that impede frictionless international capital flows. In this economy, the aggregate state vector includes the distribution of world capital across different countries as well as the exogenous country-specific technology shocks. We use the algorithm to efficiently solve models with up to 10 countries (i.e., up to 20 continuous-valued state variables).     

Determinants of total factor productivity in former Soviet Union economies: A stochastic frontier approach

This paper investigates the process of GDP generation in former Soviet Union (FSU) economies to provide an understanding of the impact of technology channels on countries’ efficiency. We apply a stochastic frontier approach to 15 FSU economies over the period 1995–2008 and find that FDI and human capital improve countries’ technical efficiency. Furthermore, we show that these factors also have a positive impact on total factor productivity (TFP), which, in turn, improves real GDP growth. Hence, our results suggest that FSU countries should promote public policies that provide incentives to attract foreign investment and enhance domestic education in order to improve their economic growth. Additionally, our empirical evidence argues against the resource curse hypothesis. We also show, by computing efficiency change and technological change indices at the country level, that FSU economies benefit more from exploiting technological progress than from catching up to the best practice frontier.     

Technology capital: the price of admission to the growth club

We assess long-run patterns of global agricultural productivity growth between 1970 and 2005 and examine the relationship between investments in technology capital and productivity. To measure agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) we employ a Solow-type growth accounting method to decompose output growth into input and TFP growth. For technology capital we construct two indexes reflecting national capacities in agricultural research and education-extension for 87 developing countries. We then correlate technology capital levels with long-term growth rates in agricultural TFP. Our findings show that global agricultural TFP growth as a whole accelerated since 1980, although performance was very uneven across developing countries. TFP growth rates were significantly influenced by technology capital. Marginal improvements to research capacity, given a minimal level of extension and schooling existed, were associated with faster TFP growth. However, marginal increases in extension-schooling without commensurate improvements in research capacity did not improve productivity performance.     

Growth, public investment and corruption with failing institutions

Corruption is thought to prevent poor countries from catching up with richer ones. We analyze one channel through which corruption hampers growth: public investment can be distorted in favor of specific types of spending for which rent-seeking is easier and better concealed. To study this distortion, we propose a dynamic model where households vote for the composition of public spending, subject to an incentive constraint reflecting individuals’ choice between productive activity and rent-seeking. In equilibrium, the structure of public investment is determined by the predatory technology and the distribution of political power. Among different regimes, the model shows a possible scenario of distortion without corruption in which there is no effective corruption but the possibility of corruption still distorts the allocation of public investment. We test the implications of the model on a set of countries using a two-stage least squares estimation. We find that developing countries with high predatory technology invest more in housing and physical capital in comparison with health and education. The reverse is true for developed countries.      

Localized Innovation and Productivity Growth in Asia: An Intertemporal DEA Approach

Recent contributions to growth theory stress the importance of localized innovation for the performance of more backward countries. In earlier papers, analyses by means of DEA techniques confirmed this intuition. In this paper, we extend this type of analysis by relaxing the macroeconomic viewpoint adopted until now. New databases on output, labor and capital input in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors are developed for 40 countries. Using intertemporal DEA, it is found that changes in the global production frontier are localized at high levels of capital intensity. This result is stronger in agriculture than in manufacturing. Further, a decomposition of labor productivity growth in eight Asian countries for the period 1975–1992 into the effects of capital intensification, learning and innovation is made. The results suggest that there is a particular development path in which increases in capital intensity appear to be a prerequisite to benefit from international technology spillovers.JEL Classification: O14, O30, O40, O47     

Wars and capital destruction

In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework to investigate the impact of conflicts and wars on key macroeconomic aggregates and welfare. Using a panel data with 9 countries from 1870 onwards, we first show that the consumption-to-output ratio is minimal during WWII for participants. While this can be explained by an increase in public spending in the USA, this cannot be the case in other countries that participated in WWII, as they experience a large fall in output during wartime. To account for this, we build a variation of a Real Business Cycle model first proposed by Hercowitz and Sampson (1991). We extend the initial model to account for specific shocks that destroy private and public capital stocks – as conflicts do – by assuming an (exogenously) time-varying parameter in the law of capital accumulation. In addition, the model imbeds generalized TFP shocks capturing standard technological factors as well as the potential effects of war on the labor force. The model is estimated and used (i) to assess the importance of capital shocks during war episodes, and (ii) to quantify the welfare effects of conflicts. We show that capital shocks are crucial to account for the macroeconomic dynamics of countries that have experienced large war-related destruction, and that the welfare losses from fluctuations can be quite large when considering data samples that include major war episodes.     

Technology Transfer with Capital Constraints and Environmental Protections: Models and Applications to the Philippines

An efficient technology transfer from advanced to developing countries is explored by extending dynamic input-output optimization models. We include capital investments for the transferred technologies that affect the structural change and the welfare streams of consumption and the environmental state in the developing country. This technology transfer model is then linearized to solve larger problems. The linearized model was estimated and applied to assess the optimal technology transfer schedule from Japan to the Philippines.     

国际资本流动与国际贸易关系:“Mundell模型悖论”

文章通过建立“Mundell模型悖论”模型,解释发展中国家对发达国家的投资对国际贸易的影响。分析得出的结论是:(1)发展中国家对发达国家的投资是贸易导向的;(2)应该以获取发达国家的先进生产技术为投资目的;(3)发达国家和发展中国家均能增加消费,增加各自的福利。文章最后给出了政策建议。     

Training,adverse selection and appropriate technology: Development and growth in a small open economy

Recent diffusion models cannot explain why the success of technology diffusion depends so critically on developing countries’ human capital levels. This paper examines three main issues. First, we endogenize both appropriate technologies and human capital formation. Second, we refine the human capital accumulation process by introducing uncertainty about worker quality and training efficiency. Finally, we allow for international diffusion of technology as a function of the host country’s endogenous ability to absorb technological spillovers. The resulting model is one of uneven growth where trade amplifies worker quality problems in laggard countries. In contrast, technology spillovers are shown to generate additional incentives to accumulate human capital in the laggard country, since this allows for faster adoption and diffusion of foreign technology in the future.     

Integrated reporting and cost of capital: The moderating role of cultural dimensions

Since its introduction, integrated reporting (IR) has triggered a rich debate covering several aspects, from the structure and the features of a document to the effects of its publication. Very recently, scholars have examined the negative relationship between IR and the cost of capital for firms, completely missing the opportunity to understand whether this fact is contingent on the cultural context that adopting companies operate in. We fill this gap by resorting to a panel sample of 211 adopters from 31 countries over the period spanning 2009–2017, counting 1,455 observations. Our evidence confirms that adopters, on average, benefit from a 1.4% decrease in the cost of capital. Yet, more importantly, IR effectiveness is exalted in countries with low power distance, strong collectivism values, and high level of masculinity, while uncertainty avoidance, long‐term orientation, and indulgence do not seem to play any moderating role.     

Growth vs. level effect of population change on economic development: An inspection into human-capital-related mechanisms

This paper studies the different mechanisms and the dynamics through which demography is channeled to the economy. We analyze the role of demographic changes in the economic development process by studying the transitional and the long-run impact of both the rate of population growth and the initial population size on the levels of per capita human capital and income. We do that in an enlarged Lucas–Uzawa model with intergenerational altruism. In contrast to the existing theoretical literature, the long-run level effects of demographic changes, i.e. their impact on the levels of the variables along the balanced growth path, are deeply characterized in addition to the more standard long-run growth effects. We prove that the level effect of the population rate of growth is non-negative (positive in the empirically most relevant case) for the average level of human capital, but a priori ambiguous for the level of per capita income due to the interaction of three transmission mechanisms of demographic shocks, a standard one (dilution) and two non-standard (altruism and human capital accumulation). Overall, the sign of the level effects of population growth depends on preference and technology parameters, but numerically we show that the joint negative effect of dilution and altruism is always stronger than the induced positive human capital effect. The growth effect of population growth depends basically on the attitude to intergenerational altruism and intertemporal substitution. Moreover, we also prove that the long-run level effects of population size on per capita human capital and income may be negative, nil, or positive, depending on the relationship between preferences and technology, while its growth effect is zero. Finally, we show that the model is able to replicate complicated time relationships between economic and demographic changes. In particular, it entails a negative effect of population growth on per capita income, which dominates in the initial periods, and a positive effect which restores a positive correlation between population growth and economic performance in the long term.     

The zero lower bound,the dual mandate,and unconventional dynamics

This paper examines monetary policy when it is constrained by the zero lower bound (ZLB) on the nominal interest rate. Our analysis uses a nonlinear New Keynesian model with technology and discount factor shocks. Specifically, we investigate why technology shocks may have unconventional effects at the ZLB, what factors affect the likelihood of hitting the ZLB, and the implications of alternative monetary policy rules. We initially focus on a New Keynesian model without capital (Model 1) and then study that model with capital (Model 2). The advantage of including capital is that it introduces another mechanism for intertemporal substitution that strengthens the expectational effects of the ZLB. Four main findings emerge: (1) In Model 1, the choice of output target in the Taylor rule may reverse the effects of technology shocks when the ZLB binds; (2) When the central bank targets steady-state output in Model 2, a positive technology shock at the ZLB leads to more pronounced unconventional dynamics than in Model 1; (3) The presence of capital changes the qualitative effects of demand shocks and alters the impact of a monetary policy rule that emphasizes output stability; and (4) In Model 1, the constrained linear solution is a decent approximation of the nonlinear solution, but meaningful differences exist between the solutions in Model 2.     

Inequality and catching-up under decreasing marginal impatience

This paper examines how endogenous time preference interacts with inequalities in economic development. We consider two distinct groups of households with intrinsic inequality (e.g., capitalists and workers), and show that (i) under decreasing marginal impatience (DMI), an unequal society may be preferable for poor households than an egalitarian one in which every household owns an equal share of asset; (ii) poor households tend to benefit more under DMI than CMI (constant marginal impatience) from positive shocks; (iii) inequality exhibits a sharp inverted-U shape as more people become rich, which should be good news for developing countries in catching up; and (iv) a tax on capital income reduces poor households’ income when the fraction of the rich is sufficiently small. We also examine immigration and discuss capital mobility.     

No man is an island: Social and human capital in IT capacity building in the Maldives

In many developing countries, lack of IT skills and human capital impede the potential of IT investments in organizations in developing countries [Lee, J. (2001). Education for technology readiness: Prospects for developing countries. Journal of Human Development, 2(1), 115–151]. This paper draws upon theories of human and social capital, and knowledge, to explain enablers/obstacles for knowledge creation and transfer for IT capacity building in a tourism organization in a developing country – the Maldives. IT capacity building is intimately linked to knowledge and skills at the level of human resource development. Using the Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) [Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23, 242–267] framework for the role of social capital in knowledge creation and transfer, we examine the major issues of IT capacity building for the case organization. We conclude that the role of cognitive capital is the most important for the tourism sector of the Maldives, and may play a vital role in accumulating structural and relational capital, together with appropriate government policies on ICT.     

Endogenous International Technology Spillovers and Biased Technical Change in Agriculture

This paper analyzes trade-related knowledge flows from an innovating country to other countries. It is assumed that knowledge is embodied in commodities traded between countries and that the potential productivity of this knowledge is determined by the local usability of foreign technologies. The usability of foreign knowledge is dependent on the local absorption capacity (such as knowledge infrastructure and human capital) and on structural differences (factor endowments or climate) between countries. In agriculture, a large portion of the knowledge is embodied in inputs which cause factor-biased technical change in the receiving sectors. Trade-related knowledge transmission is introduced in an applied multi-region general equilibrium model (GTAP) to study the macro-economic and sectoral impacts of knowledge spillovers and of trade policies. Endogenous embodied technology spillovers bear some important implications for trade policy, because protective measures preclude countries not only from cheaper imports but also from foreign technologies.     

Savings and investment rates in Latin America: An error correction analysis

Using savings and investment rates from fifteen Latin and Central American countries, this study explores the possibility of a long-run relationship between saving and investment. The analysis consists of regressions unit root tests, and an error correction model developed by Jansen and Schulze (1996) and Jansen (1996). Of the 15 countries, there is evidence to substantiate capital mobility in 13 countries. For Chile and Uruguay, countries that have experienced considerable capital controls, evidence indicates the lack of capital mobility for these two countries.     

Diverging patterns with endogenous labor migration.

"The standard neoclassical model cannot explain persistent migration flows and lack of cross-country convergence when capital and labor are mobile. Here we present a model where both phenomena may take place.... Our model is based on the Arrow-Romer approach to endogenous growth theory. We single out the importance of a (however weak) scale effect from the size of the workforce.... The main conclusion of this simple model is that lack of convergence, or even divergence, among countries is possible, even with perfect capital mobility and labor mobility."     

实时财务报告技术采纳与资本成本——基于“创新接受”视角的理论模

在资本市场中,公司与其对手为获得更低的资本成本展开竞争。为了达成目标,公司都尝试采用新的信息技术来提高信息披露的透明度。扩展组织"创新接受"理论的内容并整合影响实时财务报告技术采纳和资本成本的主要因素,利用数学模型建构两者之间的约束关系,结果发现,资本成本的节省、不确定性、风险规避、交易、转换成本以及公司治理政策等都对公司何时以及是否采纳实时财务报告技术产生影响。     

中国R&D投入对生产率增长的技术溢出效应——基于工业行业(1993～2006年)的实证研究

本文在内生经济增长理论的框架下,以中国工业行业(1993～2006年)为研究对象,在将R&D资本存量分为本国本行业R&D、本国其他行业R&D、外国本行业R&D、外国其他行业R&D资本存量的基础上,对它们对生产率的技术溢出效应进行了实证研究。结果表明,在总体行业样本下除了外国其他行业R&D资本对生产率影响不确定外,本国本行业R&D、本国其他行业R&D、外国本行业R&D资本对生产率均有显著的正的影响;在不同时段、不同技术水平、不同产权结构等约束条件下,虽然一些R&D投入对生产率增长的促进作用得到了抑制,但大多数R&D投入仍有显著的正的影响。