Climbing the technology ladder too fast? : an international comparison of productivity in South and East-Asian manufacturing, 1963-1993

This paper provides a star comparison of manufacturing productivity levels in China, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan with the US as the reference country for the period 1963-1993. South Korea and Taiwan showed prolonged catch up in labour productivity with the US, whereas the other countries had long periods of relative stagnation. This is reflected in relative performance of seven detailed manufacturing branches. Physical capital per hour worked in the Asian countries is still well below the US level and there are abundant opportunities for further capital intensification. Relative total factor productivity levels in South-Korean and Taiwanese manufacturing are much lower than in the US in all manufacturing branches. The same is true for India and Indonesia compared to South Korea and Taiwan. Hence, late industrializers do not automatically benefit from the increasing global pool of technologies.

Climbing the Technology Ladder Too Fast? An International Comparison of Productivity in South and East- Asian Manufacturing, 1963-1993

productivity levels; South & East Asia

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 sector 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, knowledge assimilation 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