IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trn/utwpas/1006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Algorithmic Measurement of Technical Progress

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Zambelli
  • Thomas Fredholm

Abstract

In this paper we propose a measure of technological progress which is based on the information embedded in standard input-output tables. Well known duality properties enables one to establish a connection between the quantities necessary as inputs and the associated output and some auxiliary prices (like the wage-profit curves). We claim that properly tailored wage-profit frontiers may provide a basis for the measurement of technological progress. But the computation of these wage-profit frontiers is not trivial. A brute force algorithm for the computation of the wage-profit frontiers has high combinatorial complexity that would make its precise computation intractable. But thanks to an efficient algorithm that we have been able to devise we can now compute it. We consider this to be an important and original contribution. Here we present and apply this algorithm. Due to this improvement we can now use these wage-profit frontiers as benchmarks against which to measure technological progress: two new indices have been defined. These new tools have have been applied to the OECD input-output data 1970-2005 and the reslts are presented here.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Zambelli & Thomas Fredholm, 2010. "An Algorithmic Measurement of Technical Progress," ASSRU Discussion Papers 1006, ASSRU - Algorithmic Social Science Research Unit.
  • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwpas:1006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.assru.economia.unitn.it/files/DP6.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Zambelli, Stefano & Fredholm, Thomas & Venkatachalam, Ragupathy, 2017. "Robust measurement of national technological progress," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 38-55.
    2. K. Vela Velupillai, "undated". "Remembering Krishna Bharadwaj," ASSRU Discussion Papers 1209, ASSRU - Algorithmic Social Science Research Unit.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Technological Change; Convergence; Input-output analysis; Technological Frontier; Computational Techniques;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • C67 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Input-Output Models
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:trn:utwpas:1006. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: assru.tm@gmail.com (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detreit.html .

    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.