North-South Trade-Related Technology Diffusion : Virtuous Growth Cycles in Latin America

Schiff, Maurice ; Wang, Yanling

关键词: ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY;    ACCOUNTABILITY;    AGGREGATING GOVERNANCE INDICATORS;    AVERAGE LEVEL;    BUSINESS REGULATIONS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5300
RP-ID  :  WPS5300

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines the impact on totalfactor productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)and in other developing countries of trade-relatedtechnology diffusion from the North) (denoted by NRD),education, and governance, research and development The NRDvalue for a developing country is an average of R&Dstocks in the North, with weights related to openness withthe North. Industry-specific NRD is based on the North sindustry-specific R&D, North-South trade patterns, andinput-output relations in the South. The main findings are:i) the impact of education and governance on TFP issignificantly larger in LAC than in other developingcountries, while the opposite holds for NRD; and ii)education, governance and NRD have additional effects on TFPin LAC s R&D-intensive industries through theirinteraction with either or both of the other two variables;and iii) since NRD increases with openness and with R&Din the North, both variables raise the South's TFPdirectly as well as through their interaction with educationand governance. These interaction effects imply thatincreasing the level of any of the three policy variables --education, governance, or openness --results in virtuousgrowth cycles. These are smallest under an increase in oneof these variables, stronger under an increase in two ofthem and strongest under an increase in all three variables.