The Effects of Trade Orientation and Human Capital on Total Factor Productivity

Stephen Miller and Mukti Upadhyay ()

No 1997-07, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the effects of trade orientation and human capital on total factor productivity for a pooled cross-section, time-series sample of developed and developing countries. We first estimate total factor productivity from a parsimonious specification of the aggregate production function involving output per worker, capital per worker, and the labor force, both with and without the stock of human capital. Then we consider a number of potential determinants of total factor productivity growth including several measures of trade orientation as well as a measure of human capital. We find that a high degree of openness benefits total factor productivity and that human capital contributes to total factor productivity only after our measure of openness passes some threshold level. Before that threshold, increases in human capital actually depress total factor productivity. Finally, we also consider the issue of convergence of real GDP per worker and total factor productivity, finding more evidence of convergence for the latter than for the former.

Pages: 41 pages
Date: 1997-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in two parts in Journal of Development Economics (December 2000) and Journal of Macroeconomics (June 2002).

Downloads: (external link)
https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/1997-07.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uct:uconnp:1997-07

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics University of Connecticut 365 Fairfield Way, Unit 1063 Storrs, CT 06269-1063. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark McConnel ().