Education and growth: an industry-level analysis of the Portuguese manufacturing

Marta C. N. Simões () and Maria Adelaide Silva Duarte ()

No 2007-03, GEMF Working Papers from GEMF - Faculdade de Economia, Universidade de Coimbra

Abstract: TThis paper investigates the education–growth link at the more disaggregate industry level in the Portuguese manufacturing sector with a focus on different levels of education. The insights from new growth theory and a modified and augmented version of the Benhabib and Spiegel (1994) specification are the basis for the empirical analysis of the role of education in innovation and imitation activities highlighting a role for specific schooling levels across industries according to their technological characteristics and its interaction with international trade. We use data for the period 1986–1997, fourteen Portuguese manufacturing industries and panel data econometric techniques. Our most robust finding concerns the relevance of technology spillovers embodied in imports for productivity growth, as long as manufacturing industries employ workers with skills provided by secondary education. The Portuguese manufacturing industry cannot rely on automatic technological catch up for productivity growth so active trade and education policies are crucial to recover from the present bottom position in the rank of OECD productivity levels.

Keywords: education; innovation; technology diffusion; productivity growth; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 I20 O30 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-edu, nep-eff, nep-hrm, nep-int and nep-tid
Date: 2007
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gmf:wpaper:2007-03

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