Technological Progress versus Efficiency Gain in Manufacturing Sectors

This study decomposes the nonparametric Malmquist productivity index for 36 Korean manufacturing sectors into two components: technological change and technical efficiency change. The empirical results show that while each sector displays quite different growth patterns, productivity growth is dominated by technological change. Technological change is found to have a negative correlation with efficiency change. Secondary regression performed in this study identifies the relationship between productivity growth measures and several key policy variables, such as effective protection rate, market concentration, and so forth. The productivity estimates are compared with those of the conventional Törnqvist productivity index.