IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v31y2014icp89-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On optimal long-term relationship between TFP, institutions, and income inequality under embodied technical progress

Author

Listed:
  • Fuentes, Raúl
  • Mishra, Tapas
  • Scavia, Javier
  • Parhi, Mamata

Abstract

We develop a simple optimal catch-up model under embodiment to study the potential long term dynamic relationship between total factor productivity (TFP), institutional quality, and income inequality in the context of a developing economy. Assuming a proactive role of institution in the persistence of TFP and minimum inequality spread for social optimum, we quantify the extent to which embodiment characteristics determine the long-term dynamics among these factors. It is shown that the amelioration (deterioration) of institutional quality influences skilled labour mobility across sectors (in developing economies) thereby decreasing (increasing) long term income inequality. Long run scenarios are built using our model in which the production sophistication of the economy under embodiment is shown to be compatible with both better institutions and less income inequality. Quantile regression results for a sample of 27 developing countries over 1990–2010 provide broad support to the theoretical predictions. In particular, it is found that – along the distribution path of embodied technical progress – there is heterogeneous response of productivity growth to the inequality spread and innovation intensity. Our results have interesting policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Fuentes, Raúl & Mishra, Tapas & Scavia, Javier & Parhi, Mamata, 2014. "On optimal long-term relationship between TFP, institutions, and income inequality under embodied technical progress," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 89-100.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:31:y:2014:i:c:p:89-100
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2014.08.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X14000484
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2014.08.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226304557 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Dawid, Herbert & Greiner, Alfred & Zou, Benteng, 2010. "Optimal foreign investment dynamics in the presence of technological spillovers," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 296-313, March.
    3. Martin Neil Baily & Robert J. Gordon, 1988. "The Productivity Slowdown, Measurement Issues, and the Explosion of Computer Power," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(2), pages 347-432.
    4. Koenker, Roger, 2004. "Quantile regression for longitudinal data," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 74-89, October.
    5. Plutarchos Sakellaris & Daniel J. Wilson, 2004. "Quantifying Embodied Technological Change," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-26, January.
    6. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    7. Latzer, Hélène, 2013. "Bridging the technology gap with limited human capital resources," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 175-184.
    8. Jörg MAYER, 2001. "Technology Diffusion, Human Capital And Economic Growth In Developing Countries," UNCTAD Discussion Papers 154, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    9. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Krusell, Per, 1997. "Long-Run Implications of Investment-Specific Technological Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 342-362, June.
    10. Edmond S. Phelps, 1962. "Substitution, Fixed Proportions, Growth and Distribution," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 133, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    11. Raouf Boucekkine & Blanca Martínez & Cagri Saglam, 2006. "The Development Problem under Embodiment," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 42-58, February.
    12. M.‐Y. Cheng & P. Hall, 1998. "Calibrating the excess mass and dip tests of modality," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 60(3), pages 579-589.
    13. Charles R. Hulten, 1992. "Growth Accounting When Technical Change is Embodied in Capital," NBER Working Papers 3971, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Areendam Chanda & Carl-Johan Dalgaard, 2003. "Dual Economies and International Total Factor Productivity Differences," Macroeconomics 0305002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Fabien Ngendakuriyo, 2013. "Institutional Quality and Growth," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(1), pages 157-183, February.
    16. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Stephen Turnovsky, 2006. "Growth and income inequality: a canonical model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(1), pages 25-49, May.
    17. R. C. O. Matthews, 1964. ""The New View of Investment": Comment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(1), pages 164-172.
    18. Hulten, Charles R, 1992. "Growth Accounting When Technical Change Is Embodied in Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 964-980, September.
    19. Robert J. Gordon, 1990. "The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord90-1, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giorgio Calcagnini & Germana Giombini & Giuseppe Travaglini, 2021. "The Productivity Gap Among Major European Countries, USA and Japan," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 7(1), pages 59-78, March.
    2. Raúl Fuentes Z. & Javier Scavia D. & Juan Berríos P., 2014. "About the long-term distributional impact of embodied technological progress (without spillover effects) in developing countries," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 17(3), pages 28-54, December.
    3. Wen-Tai Hsu & Lin Lu & Pierre M. Picard, 2023. "Income inequality, productivity, and international trade," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(1), pages 203-249, July.
    4. Jinchao Wang & Changfu Luo, 2022. "Social Mobility and Firms’ Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.
    5. Maria Elisa Farias & Javier Scavia & Raúl Fuentes, 2019. "Bridging the Gaps: Credits, Adoption, and Inequality," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(5), pages 1355-1401, August.
    6. Azfar Hilmi Baharudin & Yap Su Fei, 2017. "A Contemporary Re-Examination Of Malaysia’S Economic Growth: The Issues Of Equity, Efficiency And Liberalization," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 62(02), pages 509-530, June.
    7. Delphin Kamanda Espoir & Nicholas Ngepah, 2021. "Income distribution and total factor productivity: a cross-country panel cointegration analysis," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 661-698, October.
    8. Nguyen, Trang T.T., 2016. "Tax administration resources and Income inequality," MPRA Paper 74820, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Ni, Niannian & Liu, Yulin & Zhou, Hui, 2022. "Financial openness, capital rents and income inequality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel J. Wilson, 2002. "Is Embodied Technology the Result of Upstream R&D? Industry-Level Evidence," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(2), pages 285-317, April.
    2. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell, 1996. "Can Technology Improvements Cause Productivity Slowdowns?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 209-276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ricardo Azevedo Araujo & Gilberto Tadeu Lima, 2008. "Investment-Specific Technological Change, Investment Sectoral Allocation and Human Capital Accumulation in a Model of Export-Led Growth," Anais do XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 36th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 200807211332520, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    4. Mukoyama, Toshihiko, 2008. "Endogenous depreciation, mismeasurement of aggregate capital, and the productivity slowdown," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 513-522, March.
    5. TOKUI Joji & INUI Tomohiko & Young Gak KIM, 2008. "Embodied Technological Progress and the Productivity Slowdown in Japan," Discussion papers 08017, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Ricardo Azevedo Araujo & Gilberto Tadeu Lima, 2012. "Capital-Specific Technological Change and Human Capital Accumulation in a Model of Export-Led Growth," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 65(262), pages 275-311.
    7. Eaton, Jonathan & Kortum, Samuel, 2001. "Trade in capital goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1195-1235.
    8. Greenwood, Jeremy & Krusell, Per, 2007. "Growth accounting with investment-specific technological progress: A discussion of two approaches," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1300-1310, May.
    9. L. Ngai & Roberto Samaniego, 2009. "Mapping prices into productivity in multisector growth models," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 183-204, September.
    10. Charles R. Hulten, 2000. "Total Factor Productivity: A Short Biography," NBER Working Papers 7471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Plutarchos Sakellaris & Daniel J. Wilson, 2004. "Quantifying Embodied Technological Change," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-26, January.
    12. Voon, Jan P. & Chen, Edward K. Y., 2003. "Contributions of capital stock quality improvement to economic growth: the case of Hong Kong," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 631-644, August.
    13. Jorge Duran & Omar Licandro, 2015. "Is the output growth rate in NIPA a welfare measure?," Discussion Papers 2015/18, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    14. Anthony Landry, 2018. "Capital-Goods Imports and U.S. Growth," 2018 Meeting Papers 208, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Manuel S. Santos, 2002. "On some criteria for the formulation and testing of economic growth models," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 1-18.
    16. Vincent BODART & Paul REDING, 2001. "Do Foreign Exchange Markets Matter Dor Industry Stock Returns ? An empirical investigation," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2001016, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    17. Boucekkine, Raouf & de la Croix, David, 2003. "Information technologies, embodiment and growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(11-12), pages 2007-2034, September.
    18. Raouf Boucekkine & David De la Croix & Omar Licandro, 2011. "Vintage Capital Growth Theory: Three Breakthroughs," Working Papers 565, Barcelona School of Economics.
    19. Raúl Fuentes Z. & Javier Scavia D. & Juan Berríos P., 2014. "About the long-term distributional impact of embodied technological progress (without spillover effects) in developing countries," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 17(3), pages 28-54, December.
    20. Per Krusell, 1997. "Quality change in the CPI - commentary," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 107-111.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:31:y:2014:i:c:p:89-100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/525148 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.