Sách Essays on total factor productivity and human capital by Aiyar, Shekhar Shankar (2001)

Essays on total factor productivity and human capital



This dissertation comprises four loosely related chapters, united by little more than the common subject matter referred to in the title. The first chapter tests a model of international technological spillovers in which the host country's ability to absorb innovations developed elsewhere depends on its stock of human capital. It is found that, for a large sample of developing countries, human capital is a crucial determinant of steady state total factor productivity (TFP). Conditional on human capital, convergence in TFP obtains. The second chapter outlines a paradox: if educational choices are endogenous, and if poor countries can imitate innovations developed elsewhere, then why do we find in some countries that the stock of human capital is not big enough to take advantage of technological spillovers. A model is constructed to explain this puzzle in terms of coordination failure and multiple equilibria. A striking feature of the model is the implication that while subsidies to basic education are always useful in the context of possible coordination failure, subsidies to higher education may prove futile. The third chapter deals with the development of a novel methodology to calculate TFP levels across nations. A "dual" method is described which relies on factor price data rather than the data on factor stocks required by standard "primal" estimates. Large discrepancies are found between dual and primal TFP estimates for a group of 22 OECD countries. In addition, it is found that a Cobb-Douglas production function with a common capital share for all countries in the world is a very good approximation to reality. The last chapter deals with a new methodology for the consistent likelihood-based estimation of autoregressive panels with fixed effects. A standard version of the Solow model is estimated to illustrate the technique; the point estimates obtained are comparable to the best prior empirical work undertaken on the subject.
[TABLE="class: citation"]
[TR]
[TH]Format:[/TH]
[TD]Dissertation[/TD]
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[TR]
[TH]Author(s):[/TH]
[TD]Aiyar, Shekhar Shankar[/TD]
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[TR]
[TH]Published:[/TH]
[TD]2001[/TD]
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[TR]
[TH]Language:[/TH]
[TD]English[/TD]
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