TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION, HUMAN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Joerg Mayer

No 154, UNCTAD Discussion Papers from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

Abstract: Technology Diffusion, Human Capital and Economic Growth in Developing Countries This paper (i) uses a newly constructed dataset on machinery imports from both developed and developing countries with significant domestic R&D expenditure to assess technology transfer to developing countries, and (ii) employs a cross-country, growth-accounting framework to analyse the impact of machinery imports, in association with human capital stocks, on economic growth. The findings suggest that machinery imports by developing countries have been higher over the past few years than during the 1970s and 1980s, and that such imports from technologically more advanced developing countries have gained considerably in importance. The growth-accounting results suggest that machinery imports combined with human capital stocks have a positive and statistically strongly significant impact on cross-country growth differences in the transition to the steady state. This gives support to earlier findings in the literature which suggest that the main role of human capital in economic growth is to facilitate the adoption of technology from abroad, rather than to act as an independent factor of production.

Date: 2001
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr
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