IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ein/tuecis/992.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Timmer, Marcel P.

    (ECIS, Eindhoven University of Technology)

Abstract

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.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Timmer, Marcel P., 1999. "Climbing the Technology Ladder Too Fast? An International Comparison of Productivity in South and East- Asian Manufacturing, 1963-1993," Working Papers 99.2, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ein:tuecis:992
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    2. van Ark, Bart & Maddison, Angus, 1988. "Comparisons of real output in manufacturing," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5, The World Bank.
    3. Jesus Felipe, 1999. "Total factor productivity growth in East Asia: A critical survey," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 1-41.
    4. Nelson, Richard R, 1973. "Recent Exercises in Growth Accounting: New Understanding or Dead End?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 462-468, June.
    5. Timmer, Marcel P., 1996. "On the Reliability of Unit Value Ratios in International Comparisons," GGDC Research Memorandum 199631, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    6. Alwyn Young, 1992. "A Tale of Two Cities: Factor Accumulation and Technical Change in Hong Kong and Singapore," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1992, Volume 7, pages 13-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Verspagen, Bart & Maurseth, Per Botolf, 1998. "Knowledge Spillovers in Europe and its Consequences for Systems of Innovation," Working Papers 98.1, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.
    8. Fagerberg, Jan & Verspagen, Bart, 1998. "Productivity, R&D Spillovers and Trade," Working Papers 98.2, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.
    9. repec:dgr:rugggd:199631 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Alwyn Young, 1995. "The Tyranny of Numbers: Confronting the Statistical Realities of the East Asian Growth Experience," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 641-680.
    11. Marcel P. Timmer, 2000. "The Dynamics of Asian Manufacturing," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1927.
    12. Edward K.Y. Chen, 1997. "The Total Factor Productivity Debate: Determinants of Economic Growth in East Asia," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 11(1), pages 18-38, May.
    13. Bernard, Andrew B & Jones, Charles I, 1996. "Comparing Apples to Oranges: Productivity Convergence and Measurement across Industries and Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1216-1238, December.
    14. Abramovitz,Moses, 1989. "Thinking about Growth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521333962, Enero-Abr.
    15. repec:fth:harver:1510 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Susan M. Collins & Barry P. Bosworth, 1996. "Economic Growth in East Asia: Accumulation versus Assimilation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(2), pages 135-204.
    17. Pack, Howard & Westphal, Larry E., 1986. "Industrial strategy and technological change : Theory versus reality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 87-128, June.
    18. Dirk Pilat, 1994. "The Economics Of Rapid Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 360.
    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. Simon, György, 2001. "Reform és növekedés Kínában [Reform and growth in China]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 673-692.
    2. repec:dgr:rugggd:200796 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Erumban, Abdul A., 2007. "Productivity and Unit Labor Cost in Indian Manufacturing: A Comparative Perspective," GGDC Research Memorandum 200796, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.

    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. repec:dgr:rugccs:199919 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:dgr:rugggd:199840 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Timmer, Marcel P., 1998. "Catch up patterns in newly industrializing countries : an international comparison of manufacturing productivity in Taiwan, 1961-1993," GGDC Research Memorandum 199840, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    4. Chia-Hung Sun, 2005. "Productivity growth in East Asian manufacturing: a fading miracle or measurement problem?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 1-19.
    5. Jesus Felipe & John McCombie & Aashish Mehta, 2025. "Is anything left of the debate about the sources of growth in East Asia 30 years later? A critical survey," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 247-280, April.
    6. Sarath Delpachitra & Pham Van Dai, 2012. "The Determinants of TFP Growth in Middle Income Economies in ASEAN: Implication of Financial Crises," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 11(1), pages 63-88, June.
    7. Timmer, Marcel P., 2002. "Climbing the Technology Ladder Too Fast? New Evidence on Comparative Productivity Performance in Asian Manufacturing," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 50-72, March.
    8. Han, Gaofeng & Kalirajan, Kaliappa & Singh, Nirvikar, 2002. "Productivity and economic growth in East Asia: innovation, efficiency and accumulation," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 401-424, December.
    9. Ha-Joon Chang & Ali Cheema & L. Mises, 2002. "Conditions For Successful Technology Policy In Developing Countries—Learning Rents, State Structures, And Institutions," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(4-5), pages 369-398.
    10. Chia-hung Sun, 2004. "Market Imperfection and Productivity Growth—Alternative Estimates for Taiwan," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 5-27, July.
    11. Ermisch, J. F. & Huff, W. G., 1999. "Hypergrowth in an East Asian NIC: Public policy and capital accumulation in Singapore," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 21-38, January.
    12. Robert W. Arnold, 2003. "Modeling Long-Run Economic Growth: Technical Paper 2003-04," Working Papers 14497, Congressional Budget Office.
    13. Boon L. Lee & William Shepherd, 2009. "Output and Productivity Performance of Hong Kong and Singapore's Transport and Communications Sector, 1990 to 2005," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 65-91, March.
    14. Timmer, Marcel & Ark, Bart van, 2000. "Capital formation and productivity growth in South Korea and Taiwan: realising the catch-up potential in a world diminishing returns," CCSO Working Papers 200003, University of Groningen, CCSO Centre for Economic Research.
    15. Jakob B. Madsen* & Md. Rabiul Islam, 2012. "The Anatomy of the Asian Take-off," Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, vol. 4(2), pages 1-24, July.
    16. repec:use:tkiwps:3232 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Gundlach, Erich & Wo[beta]mann, Ludger, 2001. "The fading productivity of schooling in East Asia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 401-417.
    18. van der Eng, Pierre, 2010. "The sources of long-term economic growth in Indonesia, 1880-2008," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 294-309, July.
    19. Sonobe, Tetsushi & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2001. "A new decomposition approach to growth accounting: derivation of the formula and its application to prewar Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, January.
    20. Charles R. Hulten, 2000. "Total Factor Productivity: A Short Biography," NBER Working Papers 7471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Li, Hongyi & Wei, Xiangdong & Xie, Danyang, 2009. "Competitiveness of the Hong Kong economy," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 573-586, September.
    22. Park, Jungsoo, 2012. "Total factor productivity growth for 12 Asian economies: The past and the future," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 114-127.
    23. Hiau Looi Kee, 2005. "Productivity or Endowments? Sectoral Evidence for Hong Kong's Aggregate Growth," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 51-81, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    productivity levels; South & East Asia;

    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:ein:tuecis:992. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ectuenl.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.