Trade policy in a growth model with technology gap dynamics and simulations for South Africa
Abstract
We extend an open economy Ramsey model to include the technology gap to the world technology frontier. The setting is a middle income country with productivity growth driven by technology adoption and foreign capital goods stimulating spillover and catching up. The interaction of technology adoption and capital accumulation generates prolonged transition growth and strengthens the growth effect of increased openness. Model simulations reproduce the changing openness in South Africa 1960–2005. International sanctions and protectionism are represented by a calibrated tariff equivalent, and the counterfactual elimination of the tariff equivalent shows large potential for GDP growth. According to our preferred parameterization increased trade share by 10% points raises GDP level over time by about 12%. Separating the effects of openness between investment and productivity we find that almost 60% of the increase in GDP is due to increased productivity, partly because of interaction with higher investment.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.
Volume (Year): 36 (2012)
Issue (Month): 7 ()
Pages: 1042-1056
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jedc
Related research
Keywords: Growth model; Technology gap; World technology frontier; Trade policy; South Africa;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
- F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies
- O33 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change; Research and Development; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
- O41 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
- O55 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:36:y:2012:i:7:p:1042-1056For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wendy Shamier).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

