Closing the Gap in Education and Technology

De Ferranti, David ; Perry, Guillermo E. ; Gill, Indermit ; Guasch, J. Luis ; Maloney, William F. ; Sanchez-Paramo, Carolina ; Schady, Norbert

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: ACCESS TO EDUCATION;    ADAPTATION;    ADAPTIVE R&D;    ADDITION;    ADULT POPULATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/0-8213-5172-9
RP-ID  :  25834

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 report focuses not only on the gapsfacing Latin America in both education and technology, butespecially on the interactions between the two. The centralpremise of the report is that skills and technology interactin important ways, and this relationship is a fundamentalreason for the large observed differences in productivityand incomes across countries. This report argues that skillsupgrading technological change, and their interaction aremajor factors behind total factor productivity growth.Skill-biased technological change is indeed beingtransferred today at faster speeds to LAC countries, aselsewhere. Technological change has been complementary withskill levels in Latin America in the last two decades. It isfurther estimated that firms have substantially increasedthe demand for educated workers in the region, particularlyworkers with tertiary education. This technologicaltransformation appears to be intimately related to patternsof integration in the world economy. Firms in sectors withhigher exposure to trade are subject to more competitivepressures. Adopting and adapting more advanced technologiesand hiring and training more educated workers is one way torespond to this pressure to become more productive. Theincreased potential demand for education offers thepossibility to accelerate productivity growth in the economyby closing the educational and technological gaps that LatinAmerican countries exhibit with respect to their peers.